Ways to Measure Trees MaKshya Tolbert         Level II: Basic Assessment All my life I was a hammer: I struck at everything I touched. Then I commit a few Thursdays to trees. I am not gentle but I could be. Around one tree, I try my basic circling steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet and listen for the difference: alive? dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive? I muscle coils of clay and learn the same lesson again and again– could be clay trees family trees literal trees: I hear the precarious things. I go phone-my-forester asking [...]