The tree stood sloped upward at the edge of the yard. It grew long with the setting sun, reaching toward the house, granting respite from another sweltering day - or may it was rain - it's hard to remember.
The tree had stood guard over rows of corn and squash, the squeals of children hanging from swing sets, the death defying tricks on a trampoline with no pads or webbing to insure safety.
It watched the man in overalls with his donkey plowing the fields and later the same man with a tractor. It heard the cluck of chickens feeding on grain, laying eggs. It gasped each time the crack of a breaking neck reverberated on the wind.
The tree took in the smoke of a hundred fires: the ones for singeing the soft down off a chicken, the ones clearing to ash a stack of debris, and the small ones in the cigarettes the boys smoked discretely behind the barn - high on their maturity and sophistication.
When the house burned it watched the embers glow upward on drafts, then scatter on the ground. It felt sprays caught on the wind from the fire hoses and was grateful for how the night cooled.
These moments imprinted on its rings - the internalization of all the decades of activity: famine and harvest, glee and wailing, birth and death. An observer, but also a container of the passage of time, lasting longer than any of its human counterparts. An old soul, whispering its secrets in the language of leaves blowing in the wind.
Stand near it in stillness, and calm your soul.
- Writer's Workshop, July 2024
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