A Tree Doesn't Grow on 30th Street

It was a windy day in Lincoln today. I was grading at Barnes & Noble with Jeanine for most of the afternoon and didn't realize how windy it really was until I got home and saw one of the massive trees in our yard was blocking 30th street. After last summer's strong thunder storms, I'm surprised the tree lasted as long as it did given the rotting trunk that was exposed after it broke in half. Luckily, it fell into the street and only did very minor damage to the house across the street.

I'd write more to eulogize the tree, but a) I'm renting and b) it honestly wasn't the prettiest tree I've ever seen but I do wonder:

• how old was it?
• who lived in this house when it was a mere sapling?
• who planted it?
• how lovely was my neighborhood at one time?

This all reminds me of my favorite Robert Frost poem, although the trees in Lincoln are only now beginning to drop their leaves.

A Leaf-Treader

I have been treading on leaves all day until I am autumn-tired.
God knows all the color and form of leaves I have trodden on and mired.
Perhaps I have put forth too much strength and been too fierce from fear.
I have safely trodden underfoot the dead leaves of another year.

All summer long they were overhead, more lifted up than I.
To come to their final place in earth they had to pass me by.
All summer long I thought I heard them threatening under their breath.
And when they came it seemed with a will to carry me with them to death.

They spoke to the fugitive in my heart as if it were leaf to leaf.
They tapped at my eyelids and touched my lips with an invitation to grief.
But it was no reason I had to go because they had to go.
Now up, my knee, to keep on top of another year of snow.

(I was playing around with iMovie here, sorry if it's a bit dull.)

If I was a better iMovie director, I would give the tree a nice--if heavily recreated--montage of memories from across the years: it's first winter, its first thunder storm, its first spring...its 21st birthday bash with the trees on 30th street.