There Is A Tree

There is a tree. A tree I know I've seen before, perhaps in my childhood, on holiday somewhere, or maybe in a dream. A tree by a wide river, that leans out from the bank and hangs its languorous boughs over the dark currents below. It's wrapped in ribbons, lanterns, electric cables and fairy lights. The ephemera of many lifetimes. Birds of every kind perch in its branches and an a to z of critters hurry across its surface or burrow deep into the comfort of its flesh. At its base, worn and torn plastic grass circles around its elephant feet. Cobbles that try to path around it are buckled and broken by snaking roots and defiant knuckles.

"Do you remember this tree?" I say, lifting my hand from the bed to point up at the leaves that vibrate and dance above us.

"This tree?" She says, looking up from her phone and glancing first at the plastic tubes and crisp hospital linen, then once around the room. "Sure. It's beautiful."

She doesn't sound sure. After another obliging look around, she squeezes my hand to squish away the moment, perhaps to hurt the death that makes slow, deliberate advances within me, or to push back the tears that are inseparable from her words these days.

She's right though, it is beautiful. As beautiful as I remember, but this doesn't feel like memory. More than a nostalgic daydream, more than a medicated hallucination or otherworldly vision, this tree is right here, spreading out above me as much as it ever has. Perhaps I'm here too, it's hard to say, but I feel like I probably am.

"Am I here, now?" I ask.

A dove sitting on a branch nearby turns and nods at me.

"Yes, you are here," they say.

A cicada scuttles past and gives me a little cicada wink followed by an affectionate cicada salute. They don't speak, maybe cicadas don't, but I understand them completely.

"Hey friend, of course you're here," they're saying.

The cicada makes to hurry off, but stops mid-stride before turning almost reluctantly and coming a little closer.

"You were always here, you just got distracted." They say, their mouth moving now as I hear the words. "But that's ok, we had plenty to do anyway. How have you been?"

"I've lived a whole life since."

"For sure, me too. How was it?"

I have to think about this. I have to think about it a lot. The cicada glances at the dove, then after a few minutes shrugs a cicada shrug and starts to walk away.

"No, wait!" I call out and they shuffle back a little.

"I think maybe I wasted it." I feel my eyes tear up as I say this out loud for the first time.

The dove hops one branch down to join the cicada and they both stare at me with expectation, and perhaps something that looks a little like compassion. Love, even. Cicada love. Dove love.