Outside of this window sits two trees, one blocked only by the glass and the other overlooking the traffic. Watching the traffic lull, watching the lights turn, watching people and people watching.
I suppose the other tree could watch too, observing the scene behind it, but it doesn’t seem like the type. Not like the tree across the road.
That tree stands tall, containing branches on branches on branches. The kind that makes you wonder if nature is secretly just one big entity of repeating patterns that only people who are curious will stand to notice. The branches on branches on branches remind me of snowflakes. Or at least, how I’ve always drawn snowflakes.
Four lines, my pencil imprinting into the paper where they intersect. Two lines come off each of the eight lines created by my asterisks, like arrows pointing to the center. Then some kind of embellishment on the ends of the eight lines. Today I chose more arrows, but maybe tomorrow it’ll be straight lines or dots. I switch it up, not in some symbolic way of peculiarity and idiosyncrasy, but of pure incidence.
Anyway, the tree is kind of like that. Tiny, spread-out snowflakes dark against the gray, 4 p.m. sky. I wouldn’t call it evening, but I wouldn’t call it afternoon. It’s just 4 p.m.
This tree is kind of like 4 p.m., and the other tree is more like 8, maybe 9 a.m. Does this tree look down on the other? Patronizing, or jealous of its yellow leaves and woodchipped bed?
They both have reasons to be green with envy. The older, wiser, taller tree is straight out of Poe’s journal. The kind of tree a bat or an owl would use as a perch. The kind of tree that a human would hug, if they wanted to. The kind of tree that characterizes the main character’s neighborhood in a classic novel.
Still, this tree right in front of me looks young. Only slightly taller than the streetlight it’s planted beside, cloaked in yellow leaves with tastes of green; the green looks as if it’s spreading through the tree, but I know the opposite is true.
I wonder if when the tall tree sees the traffic light change from green to yellow, it thinks of the leaves. Probably not.
Back to the young tree. It’s the kind of tree that reminds you of the glory of autumn, the kind of tree that reminds you to look up after you’ve memorized each crack of the concrete.
I was going to say that they probably stare at each other and wish to trade places, but then I remembered that that’s human nature, not nature-nature. I’m sure they just co-exist, happy to be a little less lonely, but too different to consider getting to know one another.
Or maybe they’re just trees, and branches are just branches, not snowflakes. This way of thinking is without a doubt, unequivocally more fun, though.
