Tree Stumps

In the park beside my home there is an elm tree. It stands beside the road, tall and valiant. It’s limbs and branches divide into innumerable twigs and leaves that reach toward the heavens in leaves of praise. It’s shape, though not perfect, is glorious. The shade it gives is dense and cool. It is an admirable tree.

It bears the marks of time… scars where branches have been carefully trimmed, stubs where windstorms have stolen its weaker arms. The side away from the road has fewer branches at the bottom; the branches above more than compensate for the inadequacy It has weathered the blight of Elm trees… the dreaded Elm Disease. It remains, however, strong and tall. It stands victorious over all its history. It is a triumphant tree.

Beyond the tree, amidst the bramble weed and brush away from the road, there stands the ruins of a stump. It too was once an elm tree. It too once stood with limbs and branches divided into twigs and leaves of praise. It too once was a glorious admirable tree. It too weathered storms. As saplings, the two had formed an inviting form, a promising configuration. From a distance they formed a single profile, each complementing the other in a shared silhouette.

The stump, however, is a defeated tree. A grounds keeper saw that one tree was tall, broad and strong. The smaller tree’s trunk was strong but its branches at the top were weaker. So the grounds keeper cut away the smaller tree giving the larger more room to grow. Amidst the bramble and scrub weeds, the trunk feeds the decomposers, adding nutrients to the soil, feeding and supporting the pulsating roots beneath it. In ruin and submission, it provides for the needs of the other, unseen.

I am that stump.