the heartache of trees..!

i wanted to see a familiar place through unfamiliar eyes.
the things you love always seem to come alive again
when you share them with others.
i needed the change of pace.
she was game. and so we went.

hours later we lay sprawled atop the grass across
the street from its back entrance.
we weren’t talking about anything in particular -
the city.
the weather.
each other.
i don’t remember which of us saw them first,
but eventually we noticed two trees rooted
into the sidewalk across the street.
one was magnificent in its beauty: it stood tall
and proud, full to bursting with leaves
that hummed green despite the autumn winds
tickling the branches that bore them.
no more than five feet away, someone
had planted another.
this tree seemed stunted in comparison,
or perhaps just frail.
it was thin and spindly, lacking in both height
and heft. a few scattered leaves clung
to its reedy arms.
it was still beautiful, in its own way.
it just took a little longer to notice.

my fickle friend was sad.
if they had been further apart their isolation
would not have been as apparent, but because
they were stuck so close together -
but never quite close enough - their individual
solitude stood in stark contrast against the five feet
of cement that kept them from each other’s
company.
though she struck me, both then and now,
as someone who seemed to be only selectively
empathetic, something about those trees resonated
with him.
something about their sadness.
something about how alone they looked,
standing so close together and yet so far apart.

i wouldn’t really say that i am friends with him now.
seasons have changed, we along with them.
by mere chance, i brought up the trip the other day
in passing. in a strange continuation of coincidence
i woke up to a text from him this morning
with a picture of his art institute ticket from
that evening all those months ago.
i asked him if he remembered the trees. he did.

the shards of my heart were heavy with the agony
of disconnect from the person i love, and baucis
and philemon’s story struck me the way the trees
we saw last fall must have struck my one-season
friend.
suddenly i understood, at least more than i did
back then.
i wanted to run downtown and beg the desk clerks
at the art institute to help me bring those trees
together. i wanted to call my beloved and plead
with her to comprehend the protracted sadness
of what i had failed to recognize back then.
i can’t do this! i can’t be alone, now that i know
what it is like not to be…
i can’t just stand here staring at you, always
in view but five feet away forever!

and i won’t. i lost the friend i made last fall.
i’ve lost a lot of things, as i will lose many more,
and fortunately or unfortunately i will always
know exactly what i’m missing.
“it still makes me sad,” she mused earlier today.
“those poor trees.” on this one thing,
we still agree. “yeah,” i replied. “me too.”

but i’ve learned my lesson
i’ve fallen in love
for life,
and then whatever lies beyond it

so, a year later, i spent the rest of my night reminding
the one person i never intend to lose that we don’t have
to be alone the way those trees are doomed to be.
unlike them, we can still move.
at least for now. and by the time we can’t, i intend
to take a leaf from baucis’ linden limbs.
we’ll freeze in time so close,
no one could ever tear us apart.

i’m not spending eternity five feet away
from the most beautiful tree on earth.