The Tree

The maple in the back holds the sun and shade in varying measures, a god blessing and withholding at will to us below its branches. A little breeze, a little wind, and the cool places shift with the ones that burn, and the rise and set of the sun that turns it all. Once, I had thought, here below, that I could gather the sun in little cups and shoot it down with a shot of shade to walk a straighter line. Or only learn to the point of an easy prediction the rustle of leaves and the bending of arms that let the light in. The comfort of those limbs.

But a tree is a codeword for God, a planted map of chloroform, rough bark, blood sap to the root of eternity. And the shushing of mystery as she moves.

What I mean is that I know nothing. Not hows or whys, yeses or nos, not even sin or safe. Only that like an animal, I need, snuffling around for bits in the ground, the grasses. And that I pray to the tree for mercy and she exhales. The patterning of us beneath, as we live between the soothed and burnt, writing a lacy word across our skin. Light and dark, we are coloured green.