Waste

Some of my acquaintances enjoy poking fun at me because of the tender spot I have in my heart for animals. Their (mostly) good-natured ribbing descends to the level of derision when I include in my circle of affection the plants and trees in this world around me.

A few years ago there was a lovely little maple tree in the area adjacent to my parking lot at work. Like all such ornamental trees, it stood in the manicured and mulched borderlands around the striped asphalt rectangle where overpriced, over-gadgeted cars sit and drip oil and antifreeze while their owners are inside, trading hours for dollars. I never parked near the tree because of where it was located, but I always looked forward to the autumn of the year and the transformation of the maple into a thing of furious and melancholy beauty. When the leaves changed to red, there would always be a certain day when the color was just right, and the light would hit it from just such a divine angle, and the tree would look like an ember upon which Someone’s breath was blowing, heating it to its highest temperature. Shortly after, the leaves would begin to fall, and then the maple would become just another bare tree etched against the dull city sky, waiting for spring’s eternal welcome-back festival.

But two years ago, the property management had the tree and all the other young maples cut down, and the areas where they had stood were replanted with small shrubs and the strip of border area was newly mulched. Where there was once a tiny, tiny hint of sylvan peace, there is now a stark, corporate expanse, fit for ringing the Subarus and Audis and Nissans.

And as I arrived this morning, I noticed a tree that I’ve looked at many times but never really thought about. It is a maple like the ones that were cut down, just a few years old, about as big around as my thigh, about ten feet tall, with a nice green cap of leaves. It stands in a large median just off to the side, and for some reason, it was spared the saw.

I was almost to my building when I had the impulse to turn around and return to the tree and take a photo of it. And why did I have this impulse?

I think it was because a sensible part of me knows that it is only a matter of time before the tree will be cut down. It is only a matter of time before the entire area is redesigned and re-landscaped. The tree will fall as surely as if Sauromon was the property manager here.

And my acquaintances will chortle at me if I express sadness at a beautiful living thing being capriciously planted and nurtured, just to be destroyed for someone else’s caprice.

I have worn the uniform of military service and I have heard shots fired in anger…I have fired at living human beings myself. I have assisted physicians with patients who are screaming and bleeding and thrashing about. I have provided care for mentally ill adults, some of them quite dangerous. I know what it sounds and feels like when a hand grenade explodes within 50 meters and peppers my flak jacket and helmet with shrapnel. I say all this not to provide some dubious bona fides for smirking strangers online, but to provide perspective, because I realize that I regularly express thoughts that make me appear to be a doe-eyed, emaciated, hypersensitive little artiste who feels triggered and needs safe zones and perhaps wears pajamas with feet in them. I am in many ways a hard-eyed realist, but I am also a man who wants to kiss ducks on top of their heads and who worries about thirsty cows and who says prayers for the deer he sees on the side of the road and who rescues spiders and crickets from offices and carries them outside to the grassy medians.

And I grieve for trees that are planted for temporary ornamentation. No child will ever sit and daydream beneath the little maple in the parking lot outside. No lover will ever carve his and his sweetheart’s initials into its gray bark. This living thing’s entire history will be to stand like an ignored sentry outside a cold building filled with cold people, soaking in exhaust fumes and waiting for the day when an MBA with a tattoo in the small of her back decides that a sculpture done by  a local community organizer would look better in that spot than the solitary maple.

I will enjoy the little tree’s beauty as fully as I can until I leave this place or until they remove it. And I believe my deliberate enjoyment is more of a virtuous act than dropping spare change into a “Please Help” jar on the counter at the gas station where I fuel my vehicle.

~ S.K. Orr