the old torqued twisted tree itd take two men to embrace her trunk a trunk cowed by Nature that fashioned it nearly
flat its first five seven feet before she abruptly reared and went up rightangle
into the sky to mingle with her kind and her neighbours crowns which grew furthur
up the creek bank Cautiously he thought
the old tree stood under the
winter rain in the swollen surging creek and while her uppermost roots were
swept naked of soil fallen leaves debris and careless litter they mirrored her stark
overhead branches
she was unashamed and unembarrassed
her hard taproot went deeper than
the sniveling upstart water table
she was unshakeable
she had withstood more than a
hundred years of weather and whatever the planet threw at her
growing gamely behind her directly
east was a sapling(and if one had any kind of imagination they might see he as a hardy devotee) he stood in the broad protective wake of his master
the younger had its beginning in recent
decades as water became scarce we suffered more droughts but for his Providence -- if you would – he grew
ramrod straight and tall nearly as tall as she
he believed she was a she – his
evidence after all was the like-sapling
when the creek water was rampant
and might have uprooted the younger her queer low trunk deflected the punishing
water round him
walking the dry creekbed he recognised
the pair many years ago
he could also admire them from the overlook of a concrete bridge built in ‘21
the gnarled tree was hard to miss
she looked like a boats cutwater
in the Spring if it rained
the timid second made him laugh it was a nervous skinny tree that kept awkwardly to her shadow while the sun set
today though he was very grateful for the pair
the homeless mans dead body pinwheeled
in the deepcut channel in its aerated turbulence and slosh rolling over and
over and when face up smiling a nearly imperceptible smile the knife wound
at his throat
and when the creek went right
and the mans cat-fed weight and inertia forced him left her weathered bow
tossed him back into the channel and the sapling slapped away his outreached
arms as if saying Keep to your way
No
berth here
the dead man spun around and tumbled around
the treed bend
that was the last he saw of the
homeless man who he sent on his way and since he didnt read the local paper or
watch television it was also the last he
heard of him
though the true last he heard of
him was his sharp surprised bark and the
slight redbubbled gurgle
he had fawned and always been
fond of that unseemly pair in the creekbed
but nevermore than on that rainy day
1616, Monday,
16 1. 17
0901, Super Bowl Sunday, 5 2.
17
1445 days remain or less
