The Slanty Tree

This morning the sun took its time soaking into the park. By the time I'd made one round it still hadn't penetrated or done much good. Not like the sun with a canopy of clouds to shine through or a little mist to catch it, spread it, bring a glow to the grass and trees. No crystals, droplets, vapors, fogs, to invite the sun.

By the time I got around to the third side the sun still struggled to slant its rays down to the grass, pale green with hoar frost. I looked for the slanty tree today but I only saw a stretching of moist, mown lawn. It was gone. The scrawny, short, tree that never grew up but bent north like the post on a sundial, served as a disc golf target for me and my older son for so many years. It had a gnarled root, round like an elephant's foot that we would aim for. Or you could throw at the trunk itself, it didn't matter. The slanty tree, always inviting, didn't mind. It stood apart from the other, larger, more rooted trees, a perfect target because it bordered the open ground. Park people tended to stay up on the uplifted edge of the green, near the trees, so discs sailing the slanty tree didn't endanger them. It wobbled there proudly, out on its own, its few branches coming off its top like sticks balanced on a crooked finger. Few leaves, really. Its glory was its inviting, bulbous root, touched by round golf discs that bounced near it, tapped it and lay there like orbs around its base. We would walk up, pick up our discs, give the trunk a tap (if you didn't actually nail it on your putt), and step away, looking long to the east across "the harmonica", the next challenge, a real disc eater.

Now, a target, landmark, exemplar of stubborn non-growth for so long, the tree must have caught its last attention: the tree guys. Hey fellas, over here! Trimmers, thinners, loppers, choppers, hackers, wackers. Recently I'd seen it, still there, and wondered when its time would come. It came.

I walked out to the spot, easy to find if I didn't look for it but aimed by the trees and sky. It called to me. They left a 2 or so foot wide, irregular patch of dirt, a few chunks of bark skattered around, not even a stump. I guess the stump came up pretty easily; it never looked like it had much in the way of roots. Now the circles where the mowers spun around it for years, rings of grass dents, still marked it, dark in the center, a bulls eye to the very last. It didn't have a trunk, really, more like a big stick poked into the ground, a pin that the south wind, weakest of all around here, could set north.

It never amounted to much. No taller than 10 or so feet. I picked up a piece of the bark, about six inches long, with a curve that looked like the curve of the trunk. Now it's sitting on my desk and I'll toss it into some junk box. It will invite a memory or two over the years. I'll tell John about it. He'll know what we're missing.