I came back and I could see through the pane it had fallen, this leaning tree that grew pridefully close to the house, roots torn from earth in the winds.
When all others died, it had survived the heat and blight, all the cold night winds, but not my separation, cure, return.
I cried for its sorrow and sacrifice, wanting to curse this thing that willed it, winds that uprooted it, destroyed its faithfulness.
I watched its shadow evaporate— the tree die, shrivel, until the darkness inside was gone and the only true thing left to do was grieve.
Its crumbling, swirling leaves reflected inside every tree, like birds rising, flying beyond vision’s limit, Ghosts in the sun, invisible until sorrow’s replant.
The remnant breeze shuddered inside me, chided me for desiring the abandonment of this sweet dead thing, this house, hollow bones.
In the lost, scattered leaves, the bodies of swirling dust, my presence untethered from touch and sight.
I felt a roaming stillness whispering around me all that it knew, all that I remembered.
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