Splitting

The small tree stands to the side of the trail. The light brown sinews of cracked roots make a trail through sand colored boulders.

I imagine the fire roaring up the hill choosing trees. It looks like any human decision; a combination of mysterious elements in different strengths. Was it the wind gusting and relenting? The power of the heat? A sudden rain?

The tree is split. One side is darkened brown, dried limbs brushed a shiny black.
the other limb curls toward the sun, leaves unfurled in bright green.

Sometimes, my thoughtlines end up here, where I once stood gazing at the tree while the others went ahead. The trail climbed up the side of this rocky saddle to a view of granite cliffs with the river far below.

The same questions echo against my life in this moment. Why did the fire only burn half the tree? Why does the tree continue to grow? I feel the same hopelessness I felt then. Why grow? You have lost half your life. The tree has no choice. This is its nature. Perhaps, that is what I really feel as the years and death, now sparing me a glance, hurries past me.

I feel the weight of my own expectations, the loss of some youthfully composed infinity of possibilities. I am different. I do not want all that I used to. but I still want to grow, to learn with a thirst almost desperate, driven by mortality. I am split by years done and years to come, by what I want and what I have, by gratitude and hunger.

The tree is split three quarters of the way to the bottom. I peered in through the tangle of burn and limbs hoping to see the living green inside. But what I see is more tree; inside and outside the same brown. Perhaps, I am not split but only seeing too narrowly. Hopelessness fueled by my need to define. All this is, is tree.