I never noticed this tree before. Was it always here? Look how huge it is, even the upper branches as thick around as grown men— strongmen in a circus with thigh-thick arms holding up the canopy. You can’t miss this tree, and yet I think I’ve been missing it for years, driving past it on my way to work without seeing it. Now my car is running quietly over there where I pulled over because this tree was standing here where I never saw it. I see it now, though. I see it all now: How I couldn’t see before because of the understory—all those stories I was telling myself were true. All the wanting and the needing and the dying. But now I think there must have been something dead inside of me if I couldn’t see this tree. It’s so beautiful I want to die. I want to live differently. I want to take this tree back to my car, back into my life, keep it always in view. But of course that’s impossible. That would be as impossible as this tree itself being here and yet not being here. Which is why I can’t stop staring at it.
From: Vol.10 N.01 – The Transformative Now
This Tree
by
Paul Hostovsky