the little tree that could
I'm terrible at transplanting. I tend to believe the trees when they plant themselves, in this case the maples, which have a long old line of making themselves at home for perhaps hundreds of my years if we don't turn them into furniture.
There are two that made it, although the other is in the lawn and I fear for its survival after we are gone. There were two or three more in the planter box, but they died off, probably for lack of water in the corners during the dry heat’s inevitable summer.
The summer this year made me angry, a dull, pulsing rage that I didn't even notice, but it kept me inside through all the times when I imagined I would be out doing things. That rage was a follow-on to the depression which had dogged me since I got here, which in turn was its own cocktail brought on by weather and perhaps some less than optimal choices. But mostly it was just my brain under stress, lots of external stress, bowing to the weight, pressed back into the most familiar highways and byways, unable to keep to the newer trails.
It is only in the absence that I can feel how far down I was. I'm not out of the woods yet, but neither am I stewing in my own hot summer juices.
It is not summer anymore. My peach trees have caught curl and rust and seem less happy than before, but they carry on. After today's early rain I will garlic them again, in hopes of giving them a bit of a boost. Next year, if we are here, they will be on a schedule.
Next year I may have to move this one, or perhaps while it is dormant, because the resources are few but what beautiful, plucky determination there is here.
Out of nowhere, a helicopter, out of nowhere, a stem, leaves, glorious surety toward the sky.
Out of nowhere--out of everywhere. Out of the maples next door and across the street, out of sun and rain and soil and fertilizer and sitting, company, possibility.
Out of nowhere, life. out of everywhere, life.
A place to sit and some food.
For the trees, too.
For all of us.
To life.