The Brokenhearted Tree

On burnout.

It reached and it grew 
and it reached and it grew
and it carried so much
that it broke in two.

I noticed something was wrong as Nelson and I approached from the south. My favorite tree has many boughs are usually heavy in the summer, but they never touch the sandy ground beneath. In the winter its skeletal frame reaches up towards the sky, and one bough in particular hangs down towards the earth, offering itself like a proffered arm of support against the blustery winds. In summer, I snuggle my shoulder up underneath the same bough, as it hangs lower, and give it a moment or two of relief from holding its leafy burden alone. But today, that proffered limb was lying in the sand. 

My eyes followed the sunken limbs up towards the trunk, and there it was, a raw, ragged, fresh-looking tear right where the two trunks of the tree grew apart; where it initially split in two.

My Tree has a broken heart. 

I stayed with the tree a while, crying for its brokenness, hoping that this rift is just anothe…