WHAT THE TREE SAW
The thinning out of others like her. Their unceremonious breaking. The chasing out of birds and the coming in of man. The dying that came with that. Slender white pines stripped of their softness to be shipped south. At night, the moon: that wondrous and dimpled mouth. Her own body growing. Her branches becoming more. The bones of a first house, then walls, then the woman who lived there hanging laundry that haunted the yard like ghosts. The first whispers of cities. The concrete monoliths and the wantonness. Again, and again, the tree’s own coming undone, the relenting and shrivel of green before winter. The months-long almost-death. Her thaw. Her sudden and perfect blooming. - Chelsea Comeau |