I step off the red porch of my house and look up to the east at the skyframing the gangly 70 foot tall locust tree.
It has had so many struggles and elements against it since it sprouted out
of the ground about a hundred years ago.
It's made it against deer eating it's top off when it was just a tender,
tasty young whip. It probably fought having branches girdled by a hungry
porcupine when it was only a little bigger.
Now it lofts and lofts into the air---
Against gravity
Against heavy winds
Against storms
It inches and reaches a little higher every year. How many thousands and
thousands of birds have perched in its branches over the past 100 years?
How many tons of branches and twigs have been shed or blown off, decade
after decade? That old tree has let loose millions of leaves and seeds,
probably tens of thousands a year.
But here I sit now, in my yard, the cat, Misty, is sitting nearby. I'm
watching birds in the tree, she's watching birds in the tree. I'm probably
the only one in a century to just sit and write about that old locust tree.
In a couple of months the leaves will fall off yet again. Next Spring it
will start over.
Reaching towards the sky.
Towards the sun.
Higher towards the clouds.
Jim