New Project
When I start missin' you, I think about the tree down the street we liked. The tree was younger then like us, I guess. Twenty years ain't nothing to a human though and it sure as hell ain't nothing to a tree. We couldn't carve our names into it or nothin' but we could walk by it and love it for its honesty, it's beauty, the way its heavy arms defeated gravity every moment of the day, the unexhaustable beauty it grasped. There was something we could not possess even though we collected its needles, its cones. Though those old damn cones always fell apart later, being it the kinda tree that produced cones to fall apart and fly away. It would never know its humans or nothing but maybe that's what it was all about: lettin' go. Those needles were prickly little things too. I don't think we ever properly identified it like we thought we would either. After collecting over and over again, sneaking around someone's yard we never met. You think at some point we'd want to meet the planters or even think of 'em but come to think of it now, I never thought of any of that. Tree's been pruned now. Growin' old and sloppy the owners just clip and trim until it looks all perfect again but I've heard it woulda looked just fine in the first place if they'd never of touched it at all. Feel like I've been pruned too. Everything I've lost feels like a limb. But humans the lucky ones, ya see. They got a million limbs just like those big old trees and they lose 'em too but no one ever sees 'em. Not a one. No, we humans got a lot of secrets. When we lose enough limbs, we just look kinda heavy and sunken. We get a look about our eyes and our skin sort of turns until we die altogether. We all old now, I guess. Eighty years is a lot to a human but it ain't nothin' to a tree. Now I go visit the beast with a hint of embarrassment, the eyes of that ancient creature still young. I think now about those planters and all the others that'll see this thing one day. I think about it a lot now, think about all those things I never thought of, and nothing comforts me like lookin' at that tree. Yes, so young and still so brave defying gravity and all. So young and so brave and much more willin' than I ever was to lose all those limbs and still be beautiful.