In the archives of suburban history it may not amount to much, but I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. For trees on the south side of our street to lean over and touch the trees on the north. For a meeting, a confab, a treaty of trees.

I’ve longed, of course, for the passage of green, the sympathy of branch upon branch, the slightly lost feeling I get when I’m passing through such a shaded spot. In my mind’s eye are the great tree tunnels of my past, most notably Pisgah Pike in Woodford County, Kentucky, where the great, gnarled osage orange trees bend their way across an ancient, stone-lined lane.

We’re not there yet in Folkstone. I doubt our oaks could contort themselves so; they are tall, skinny trees, more vertical than horizontal. What we have this summer is a start, a first glancing touch. A promise of green tunnels to come.