I came upon a tree uprooted by a storm and paused, moved but finding it difficult to say why. Perhaps my aging body shuddered at sudden change. -One morning the tree stood upright, greeting the sun. By mid afternoon a storm arrived, just like many others, but coming on with sudden violence. What had been endured and overcome many times on that day could not stand.
That morning there was an individual life, an “I.” The intricate network of roots, drove into the earth reaching out, grasping, hungry to build itself. And then the tree came down, no longer a life, but material to build other life.
As I stood looking at the downed tree roots, light coming through the forest canopy played along its reticulations, reminding me of flames. I stood, head bowed to Brother Death, whose sly smile was reflected in that net.
-Would he and I meet, later in the day? In the dappled light, “I,” this strange, seemingly irreducible me was a flicker in the burning world.