the things that save us
the second poplar tree in the front yard is dying.
it lost its mate a few years back, and being the romantic that i am, when it started dying from the top down, i decided it must have a broken heart. ha. then again, perhaps i’m right.
i have to figure out what to do about it this year, how to afford to cut it down, if i can bear to cut it down, the hole it will leave in my view (and my heart) when it is gone. how much i will miss the sound of poplar leaves rustling through the darkest hours of long summer nights.
it will mark another ending, in this winter filled with endings i have not yet learned to process. all part of the same era, the same time-vine of hope. i planted those two poplars when i first started my garden. i planted my garden when i first started my marriage.
and now i am surrounded by empty spaces, dying graces, loaded places.
there is so much to say and nothing to be told.
so much to grieve and nothing real to bury.
so much to carry and nothing left to hold.
my truth is a dark burden, and in the silent hours of night, i sit by my window and watch those bare dead branches pierce the sky.
the gap its absence will leave on my horizon is too difficult to consider just now.
i’ll deal with it this summer.
. . .
there’s another tree in my front yard, a young river birch with its own painful story.
last summer, i actually thought about killing it. of course, i didn’t. i couldn’t. i wouldn’t.
after that, i thought about moving it, to somewhere out of sight from that same window.
i didn’t do that, either.
i decided, in the end, to watch it grow. it has three trunks. i have three children, three grandbabies. we all have roots here.
it doesn’t even begin to fill the sky yet, or close the hole in my horizon, but i’ve re-framed its significance in the window of my existence.
one day, it will offer shade to this tiny house still filled with love. in the fall, i’ll watch yellow leaves drop down through the night and think how often we all begin again. each morning, each month, each year.
the seasons have always marked my cadence.
i’m looking forward to the spring.
