An eerie tree

During the past fortnight I spent a few days in the Adirondack Park.  Part of this trip was spent in front of a wonderful fireplace, while the majority of the trip was spent outside in the woods with the trees.  I'm sure the question running through your head right now is something along the lines of  "Am I looking at the right blog right now?  I thought I'd be reading about Dante! Who is this silly person?"

Rest assured this is the right blog and this is related to Dante.  Specifically to Dante's Inferno, canto XIII, aka the second ring of the 7th circle, aka the forest of the suicides. 

As I was hiking one day we heard a very eerie moan.  We looked around for some kind of loon, or other exotic northern mountain bird, but we didn't see anything.  So then we looked around for some kind of dying  animal.  We didn't really think it was a dying animal, but we didn't see any living animals... so yeah, we looked.  Long story short, a couple of minutes later, lots of pointless looking, and some fervent declarations that it was a. spooky and b.  probably just the wind,  we discovered what it in fact was.  It was a tree.

Naturally having read Dante, I tried to break off a limb... but I was too short to even reach them, let alone break one (I wouldn't make a very good epic heroine, especially since traversing in any world is best not done in heels, and a certain modicum of height is necessary to impose ones force.)   So, since I couldn't break off a limb to gain the trees attention, I knocked on it a few times in the hope that it would talk to me.  But alas, the tree had no warring city state or tale of corruption to relate to me.  It was sad.

I'm sure you've probably figured out by now that the tree was howling due to the previously mentioned wind that was blowing.  It was also almost hollow in its deadness.  So here I am, staring at a howling tree, knowing that I was going to have to have a blog post in a short few days, and the light bulb went off.  (Which was good because it was also just after sunset, and becoming quite dark.)  Anyway, the lighting was just such that the tree would have been photograph-able but still dark, which would have been ideal.  I was really excited, and pulled out my phone to take the picture, only to remember that my phone was dead, and the members of my family that were hiking with me don't like technology and didn't have either a phone or a camera that I could commandeer.

You ask: "What are the pictures of then? "   Excellent question.  The first is a picture of similar trees at the same place, earlier in the day, before my phone betrayed me in death.  The second is a close up of one of those trees, with branches that almost resemble hair, something that seems to be an appropriate analogy to the canto.  The third, is a picture of a forest path in Tuscany, near La Verna.  A sanctuary founded by St Francis.  This is intended to show what kind of trees Dante may have been thinking about while writing.  And finally, the fourth is a very unfocused picture of that same forest in Tuscany, at night.  This is intended to tie the other pictures to the actual canto, and thus complete the chain of trees.