On a brisk yet sunny afternoon in Colorado, I found myself walking through a towering stand of white-barked voyeurs. They watched me from the canopy like sprites and peered from behind the chokecherries in the undergrowth. I’ve always felt comforted by their gaze; the quaking aspen that lived outside my childhood home watched me grow up.
I approached the trunk of an aspen that day, meeting the yellow-leaved giant eye-to-eye. Over time, this particular Populus tremuloides had shed one of its lower branches, leaving behind a perfect “eye” the size of my hand, complete with punk eyeliner, a gray iris and black pupil. It was uncannily mammalian; I almost expected it to blink. Two sets of initials were carved near it, and I wondered how lovers could gouge letters into the soft bark of these beloved trees while their victim watched, open-eyed. Especially there in one of the world’s largest aspen groves, where tens of thousands of aspen clones stood as witnesses.
I’ve always felt comforted by their gaze; the quaking aspen that lived outside my childhood home watched me grow up.
There are half a dozen species of aspen around the world, and myths about them date back centuries. In the United Kingdom, the trees have been linked to other realms, their quaking leaves serving as a portal to “the land of Faerie.” Their heart-shaped leaves, which shimmy like jazz hands, communicate with the Faerie world. Whenever I nap beneath an aspen, I receive bizarre messages from poplar nymphs. They whisper through the leafy threshold an encrypted Yeatsian message that fades upon receipt: Monkshood! Mandrake! This Golden Look Will Make You Quake!
Behind the trunk in front of me, I saw more eyes that day. Not aspens, but an actual mammal’s, the eyes of a runner up-trail from me who held my gaze as he zigzagged through the flaming understory of yellow and orange leaves. A crisp rush of wind through the stand brought the decaying smell of Rocky Mountain autumn. I returned the mustached hiker’s look, then quickly diverted my eyes. Woof. He was handsome, a fanny pack wrapped around his shirtless torso.
When I glanced back again, his gaze was unbroken. I nodded “howdy” as he silently passed me, trembling a little inside. But I was curious, too. Moments after he passed, I looked back, and our eyes met again. I swore that he gestured for me to follow him — perhaps for tea in his Tacoma? — but was uncertain. My mind was with the fairies.
That encounter was all about the eyes: the watchful gaze of the aspens, and the hiker’s stare as well. In the queer community, a stare has deep significance as essential nonverbal communication. Such cues can help us show desire and affiliation, especially when we ourselves are being watched by outsiders. In hookup culture, encounters and meetups are often sought with the verb our eyes are best known for: Looking?
Looking for what? Arboreal delights? An encounter with a mysterious stranger? Eye contact and other nonverbal signals have been key throughout history, enabling people to find companions and lovers, building community even where queerness isn’t accepted. They remain vital today when other forms of signaling may be too risky, especially where queerness is criminalized. But all the while we’re looking at each other, state surveillance is watching us.
Cameras, drones and facial recognition technologies watch us wherever we go — the evil, intrusive Eye of Sauron. The all-seeing eyes of the aspens, however, inspire community accountability; these trees were a witness to the shared exchange between me and this trail runner. They observed us but didn’t judge, unlike the government eyes that now may be watching. Earlier this year, Americans lost protection from surveillance based on their orientation or gender identity, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security. All eyes are on us now — our medical records, social media posts and other data — and it will only get worse if we do not resist this boiling fascism. An ill-fated portal now connects us to the 1950s Lavender Scare, when suspected “homosexual” government employees were targeted and fired. Or worse — far worse. And it goes beyond queerness: People are spied on and punished for fighting multiple prongs of fascism — protesting U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine and violent ICE raids and deportations.
The all-seeing eyes of the aspens observed us but didn’t judge, unlike the government eyes that now may be watching.
The living ecosystem and all its inhabitants are part of our community here on earth. Like the aspens, we can watch, too. And we can organize. I see the aspen eyes as a summons from the natural world: Will I speak up, as roads are built through the roadless wildernesses, data centers drain rivers, children’s hospitals defund trans care, the pandemic surges, or my community’s members disappear into concentration camps?
On a more recent hike this fall in California’s Eastern Sierra, I rubbed the powdery trunk of a tree, and my fairy mind flitted off to Greek mythology, where aspens are associated with the underworld and its queen, Persephone. If you wore a crown made from aspen leaves, you could visit the underworld and return unharmed. With rising temperatures and ghouls leading our country, livestreamed horror after livestreamed horror on the news and social media, I’ve become convinced that we are already in an underworld.
Countless eyes from hundreds of thousands of trees glanced out at the passing storm around me that day in the Sierra. The giant grove in Colorado near Kebler Pass was actually one singular creature, like its relative, Pando, a grove of 40,000 clonal aspens in Utah thought to be one of the largest living organisms in the world. Like the aspens, we, too, are connected, our struggles linked as so many of us face attack. We must connect the roots of our various movements and resist as one. We must not quake or tremble; we must look each other in the eye and weave ourselves crowns of aspen leaves, placing them on our heads as we resist our infernal reality.
Confetti Westerns is a column that explores the queer natural and cultural histories of the American Southwest. We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the November 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Who’s looking?”
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