the graveyard tree
mere fingers poking at the clouds above
I stared at a tree for thirty minutes.
My usual work break is spent watching videos on YouTube or texting one of my long-distance friends from college. I temporarily clock out from my barista shift, walk to my car with a drink and breakfast sandwich (if I’m lucky the cooks will make my bacon extra crispy), and stare at my phone in some form or another for half an hour. I don’t know why this time was different.
But today I stared at a tree through my windshield. It’s one of a few separating a cemetery from the church parking lot my coworkers and I leave our cars in during the day. Back in October, when the weather was warmer, I sometimes would spend my break sitting on the other side of the barrier; snacking among the dead. Now the air is crisp in a way that feels barren and I’ve resorted to hiding away in my 2017 Subaru Legacy. I hope my lunch friends don’t get too cold.
Today it was raining and droplets lolled down the glass, disrupting the view of the headstones otherwise in my line of sight mere feet away. It wasn’t until I lowered my seat down, reclining into some semblance of horizontal, that I could get a grasp of the image before me. That’s just one of those cliché things about perspective: taking a step back will often provide more clarity than scavenging for new information ever will.
I saw the tree. The same tree I rested against months ago as its leaves matured to auburn and fell, adorning the rolling pasture guarded at its base. Now its branches are barren; mere fingers poking at the clouds above, asking them to soon part so spring can come again.
Even now, standing thin and grey at her post, she breathes. It was in a way far beyond the normal biological concept of plant cycle dormancy, I saw it right in front of me through my windshield. Some will tell me it was all a trick of the eye — the droplets merely created an illusion! — but I swear the tree inhaled just like you and me.
I wonder if anyone in that yard was ever truly gone.
