Between Broke and Breaking
Wherein a limb falls...
Between Broke and Breaking
Deepest Breath,
Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to miss this tree. I love all the creatures on it. And I love its weird long branch that reaches out for a length-and-a-half its height across frost and frost and frost (and doesn't fall). And I like its squirrels and palm-size birds and songbirds and woodpeckers, the couple of corvids that weren't busy in the conifers and dead-standing nearest.
And the Moss
You know I haven't said half the things I want to say about this tree. You know the first thing I said about this tree is "the dead limb is fine - it'll fall in the direction of the ravine, not toward the picnic table." You know how many birds climb up and down that dead limb they hold every day?
You know that little lowest knotch where only just the right-size squirrel can sit and ...no other-sized... anything else‽ You know the clean cut of the chainsaw through the half-meter limb made flush a story up the trunk, pointed at the complex? You know, to see the last few twigbit in view out from within the eave, how far you have to lean out the upper window of that complex?
You know what the tree sounds like when the rain is light? when the rain downright pours? when the hail is tiny? where (from the river so close I can hear it over the train between (the base of) this tree and that river) the fog leaves the tree the only morning? when the tears from invitation to be companion turn back into steam?
You know... the tree's fine? You know the tree's going to bed - digesting the year. You know, the tree's got leaves, sometimes; And, sometimes, I find them on the sill
Me
What am I, to the tree? How am I supposed to know? gLungs? This moment? The dirt? Don't ask about me - get over here, ask the tree! The tree's friends, the tree's space. I'm just ...the rock rolling against one root while the root grows past as though that root's some shoulder and I'm perfectly spherical, gray and quartz.
I'm just words - I'm ink-thin! I'm not the beavers making the silly-terrible distress noises as they learn to love the nutria. I'm not the cats that sit in the same spots, having learned every thorn reaching out from whatever path the beaver-nutria riverlings come up the ravine from.
I'm not the heron that's never once been in this tree. The one occassionally seen spooping down from another tree with a limb of similar calibre (if growing in the opposite direction and much nearer the small channel of water on the tree's side of the tracks) as that of the relief-shaped limb of the tree here.
I'm not the woodsmoke from the barbeque, the eighty-year-old building with iron gurders for support beams completely renovated around last summer, every roofing nail renamed through collision on collision, every sawzaw, jig saw, Tecalitlán number, board taken down and other brought in, integrated. I haven't written a damned word about this tree.
I just think the long limb kinda looks like the head of a turtle sometimes. And when the wind bows, the "turtle" looks happy.
/!\ venting area /!\
goggles and coat beyond this point
🥼🥽
With the Tree
Of course, what I want to do is sit with this tree. But come christmas, that's trespassing. My boss's job got automated, and trickledown economics decrees he gets my job; And I, the can.
And everyone else is applying to every job. And friends are overhearing their hiring staff talk about some applicant for a entry-level position, saying the applicant only put down one job. I'm told another in the room in a manager role says it sounds like the applicant's lazy [for not typing out a full employment history]. I've had 25 jobs - and those are just the ones on the books!
I put 1 job on the application all the time for I have attached a resume and I am not being paid to do free data entry work for a company that is more-than-likely just saying they're hiring when, really, they're just funneling applicant data through their deep learning system to learn more about what their own employees're worth while making a quick buck selling the public part of that data to brokers beofre taking what they learn and scheduling four of the lowest-paid to the same post so three may be pulled from the pit to do tradeswork and machine handling at their lowest-paid's pay with a lowest-paid's training.
But yes! Sure! I'm lazy. Words meaning are defined by the ones with need for them have them to have that. Meanwhile, I'm going to steal my glances from this tree while I clear this place out for whatever manager ends up with it.
Then, 8 hours after christmas, I go to court, my eviction finalized, my perception with it; may another do theirs. That said: I would like to sit with this tree. And maybe liking to's all I'm ever offered anyway.
Dawn's come. No birds sang today. Fog keeps river from view. Train signals approach. Downstairs tenants mutter domestic disputes like morning greetings. It's halfway to freezing from room tempurture out; my window stays open. Good morning. Good day.
Survivalings Endlingisms
I am sick of survival. I just want to miss this tree. I just want to know something about them got the sunlight that attention offers so dripfed-few. I just want to tell the tree how cool it is they showed up. Popped out, gave a day the care and made breathing something celebrant.
I want the sound of the river to be every waterfall I've ever sat under from one job to a town with another. I want the traffic in distance to be important, desparate, joyous attempts - not bridled-rage bits looking to get off on the road. I want the screen that is to remain in the window to remain behind the fridge where I left them when I popped it out the day I moved in.
I've lived half my life unhoused - and a little less than half my life, now; my home's always been in water. About anything I am, nothing is survival. Nothing about this tree is survival. Nothing about the wind. Not even beavers' anger is survival more than [it's] noticing negotiating boundaries, And: mine aren't to be noticed. And perhaps, when it's all one pool, and the last ripple is in bed, no one's ever was.
enters, sighs, and departs fundamental interconnectedness
leaving vent; coats and goggles in the basket
🥽🥼🧺
Cooking For Family
That doesn't stop me tending, what words finds consent - body say "oats time, oats time!" I go make oats, body tucks in. Tree says, "hey look at this," and it's a turtle-shape from their eaves. Sure, tree; sure, body. Sure, perception. I'll hold.
A companion. To me. We both (...what?) drop leaves. Make art no one pays for and everyone buys with rent of their "lights" (butcherspeak for lungs). The tree ...holds the dead dear, as the living work through and through and through. Too young to consent, too old to care, seedling de-pods to turn, trunk, full-color, me at window, looking out watching leaves falling in, something like where you're getting to the end of some dream and it all falls apart so you sprint back into [it] when you're better off leaving off.
We collide with each other: leaves. Nothing is missing. We're companions. No ask to adopt, this call to notice, I ask you be here (to always have been here). To believe, this happen actually made a friend. And you truly care and that's not anyone's fault it's just noticing. It's all being gets us. This moment. This one. ((The hell are they all coming frum) the rest of the matter.) This sense, where a leaf left topology so I might rise and fall, become and allow, grateful and desiring.
That part in the dance with my back arched like that limb, the tips of my fingers where frost terminally marks this span touch breaks (resolving to have been the whole time) Icecrack Limbrelease Starbirth, the longest limb. The ravine gulps, shaking the tree so feircely dead limb snaps free, tupples end-to-end to it. To port hole (time): river in like light is for breathing. For losing and letting, for seeing through and in, ...and past. Being the parts that mattered for this part.
Every sovereign wake keeps the last, frustrated light away. Because more is superfluous. This is always right here. And what was always right here was every end of this tree falling to pieces
f[ ]or,
me