A Blog About A Tree

Colin McGowan
Nov 1 · 3 min read

The other night a thick veil of snow swept in, which didn’t surprise me because it had been getting cold for a while, long spans of sunlessness and wet autumnal air, but it did catch the trees off guard. A good number of them still have their leaves, burned yellow and red, nearly ready to fill the sidewalks and the gutters but for now still fixed to their branches by a thin stem. And what happens — I sound like an authority on this; I don’t really know anything about anything, just reporting what I see — when heavy snow falls on trees that still have their leaves is the leaves collect snow, which sounds obvious, but it’s strange to look at: a tree that typically resembles a sort of frosted nervous system after a storm becomes more shelf-like. Drifts form on the branches, and the branches droop. The tree struggles beneath the weight of the snow.

I guess this isn’t surprising: some of weaker branches snap off, like in a windstorm except it’s gravity that breaks them. Anyway, there’s a tree in my backyard that sprouts white flowers in late spring and little red berries in late summer. It’s right outside my bedroom window. Its leaves hide the room from the alley and often, in the early evening, you can find a few cardinals perched in it. I once spotted four bright red males and three red-gray females. The fourth lady was probably hidden somewhere within the tree, because cardinals usually travel in pairs. They mate for life. I looked that up a while ago. The males like to chase their partners around. The lady will chirp, hop off her branch, and swoop away, and her boy will follow. That’s something I’ve observed.

Today I awoke from an early afternoon nap — I hardly slept last night — to find rough yellow shards among the branches of the tree the cardinals frequent. I first thought they were pieces of construction paper but as my eyes adjusted I realized that a few of the branches had split off close to the trunk. The snow, melting now from the speckled dying leaves, was too much for them.

I expect the tree’s going to be okay, but someone’s going to have to come by and cut the broken branches down — the ones closest to my window, about a broom’s length away, where I could get the best look at the flowers and the berries and where sometimes a cardinal would land and I’d think wow, he’s almost right here in the bedroom with me. I’d trace the shape of his black mask with my eyes.

This upsets me. Not enough to stomp around or cry, but it seems that things are getting worse all the time, in ways they don’t have to. Every time I wake up to the world, there is less of it. Maybe I’m reading too much into a minor incident; maybe I’m in a bad mood. It’s hard to tell how I feel sometimes, or why. I can get very far away from myself. And when that happens, I like to walk into the bedroom and check to see if any pretty birds are visiting.

    Colin McGowan

    Written by

    words and jokes so that i might eat and live indoors. talk to me: colinsilasmcgowan [at] gmail [dot] com

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