Once upon a time, soon after I moved into this house as a new wife, a little red tree was planted in the park across the road. Admittedly, it was only red a handful of weeks out of the year in autumn. The rest of the year it stood, young and green, growing alone against the backdrop of the mature trees just beyond it.
I named it the ‘matchstick maple’ because of the way it flickered to life every October. Imagine my delight in discovering I could see its tiny blaze all the way from our front porch. The hills and hollers around where we live were angled in such a way that, for a few minutes in the morning hours, the sun would pour out a stream of light-fuel and that spindly tree would burst into flame against the dark forest behind it.
I looked forward to seeing it every fall. In the coming years I would birth babies and schlep their chubby selves out to the park for pictures under its crimson leaves while the sun was westering overhead. I would stand on our porch in awe of its beauty, the warmth it radiated making me brave. I loved that tree.
It’s dead now.
(this story isn’t really about a tree)