I am in a waterlogged field beside the river Deben. To escape the mud, I am standing on the collapsed trunk of an ancient willow. The tree has cleaved into three under its own weight, and the two splinter trunks now sprawl out horizontally over the mud. These rotting limbs sprout with as much vigour as the upright tree, so that I seem to be stood in a small copse of willow, all reaching out from the same core.

I follow one trunk, lain in the mud, part submerged and rotting. Living bark clings to the wasting limb where it can. Likely sensing the dwindling bond, this fallen trunk sends fresh roots down into the earth, just as it turns its branches up to the sky. It will live on when rot finally cuts it off from the old core. It will not be the offspring off this huge tree, but the same plant, travelled overland onto new ground.

The bark around the lower trunk is dark and furrowed, split apart by outward growth. As my eyes trail along the branches towards their tips, these furrows close, and the bark become smooth and bright, papery in the pale glow of sunset. The branches that curve up from the fallen trunks are the size of young trees. They are youthful and perfect, springing up into a shock of leaves. It seems strange that it can be one organism, this thing both ancient and new born.

Torn into rotting, barkless splinters, then rooting down wherever it falls. Hollowed out from inside whilst putting out tender little shoots into the light. The tree is in a constant rebirth to ward off constant death. It rots in half and grows as two. It is life in rebellion against decay.