Tree

 

You know you've been around for awhile when you begin to realize you're outliving trees.  I say this because, on a recent whim I checked on my childhood home via satellite and found that the two silver maples I'd grown up with had been cut down; their pale white stumps gleamed all the way into outer space.  

For some reason, I've always been drawn to the notion of a tree, how it silently endures so many things, season after season.  There are some stately specimens that are hundreds, even thousands of years old.  So when I learn of one's demise, whether due to fire, disease, or "progress",  I'm humbly reminded that even a tree's days on the earth are numbered.