MUNJU
field observations from the boundary
23 Sept — dusk
The ridge above Munju has stopped answering to its old names. The birches retain the shape of a forest, but each crown carries the copper bruise of drought. I pressed my hand against the bark of the largest trunk and felt no coolness beneath it, only the slow stored heat of the afternoon.
The boundary is not a line. It is the hour when the living thing becomes an archive of itself.
Spore fall noted at the western transect. Soil smells faintly of iron and old tea. Three moths circled the lantern and refused the flame.
Acer fragment
Dry root fan
Lichen tongue
Amber seed
Black reed
Last fern
Specimen
Classification
Status
Date
MNJ-014
Acer rubrum / crown
ambering
23.09
MNJ-027
mycelial lace
receding
25.09
MNJ-031
root veil
brittle
02.10
MNJ-044
Usnea colony
silent
09.10
MNJ-052
seed husk
sealed
17.10
MNJ-061
canopy ash
unreadable
31.10
By the forty-first evening the instrument stakes had leaned toward the ravine as though listening. I copied the canopy measurements twice, yet the ink continued to lift from the page in small brown islands. There are gaps now where the names of understory plants should be. There are gaps in my recall of the path home. The wiki was meant to preserve the forest, but every entry has learned the weather and begun to rot.
what remains is not what was observed, but what the observer became.
At the boundary I closed the journal and heard leaves turning where no leaves remained. If this record is found, do not restore it. Let the missing letters keep their weather.