what's the draw of a stump?

 

stumped

what did my brother Clarence

like so much about stumps?

he invested more pictures in his daughter,

but his pictures of stumps are a close second,

remnants of trees broken off near the ground

yet still enduring to echo the tree's audacity to reach for the sky,

I like to notice stumps,

to remember the tree that rose above them

that is still rooted deep but quickly fading from its life,

I like to watch fungus work its will upon them,

I watch the land around them erupt with growth

with new life now allowed

to work its will with the sunlight

no longer dominated by the will of the fallen tree

I see stumps as they appear to me

and still I cannot make the empathic leap into what my brother saw,

I remember a story of Aunt Lindy

who lived ¾ of a mile up valley from here,

her niece, Lucinda Oakley Ogle, quoted her

as appreciating her husband

for somehow, who he was,

worked well with who she was,

a luck of the draw not as universal as might seem best,

fate can make us each ourselves, and different,

it is marvelous when who we are

can work well in connection to others,

our likes and dislikes seem to have the random all about them,

for my brother and the stumps,

I can appreciate that his enthusiasms were real and important,

but profoundly beyond what I can know for sure,

love can help me appreciate, even when I cannot find the way

across the chasm between me 

and even those I dearly love, and know.

by Henry H. Walker

August 22, ‘26