The Half-Dead Tree

The yard people wanted to bring to my attention that a tree in the front yard was mostly dead. Not entirely dead, mostly. They were saying it should be cut down, they were actually the second folks to bring this to my attention. Both of them brought to my attention that a limb could magically fall at just the right moment to grievously injure someone, and we didn't want that. We think that modern people don't believe in magical thinking, but of course they do. They just believe in the kind of magical thinking that profits them. The guys who were selling survival rations prior to the December 2012 non-event or for the ever-impending Christian Armageddon were engaging in magical thinking, and I don't doubt that they might have believed something would happen. Or maybe they just wanted you to believe it. Or perhaps they didn't really think about it much, especially when it lined their pockets. These people believed that magically a limb would fall at precisely the right moment to hurt someone, bringing financial ruin in its wake, so something had to be done about the tree. 

What people neither realize nor care to realize is that a dead tree is an engine of biodiversity. It is living space for all sorts of animals and other organisms. A high-rise apartment full of biodiverse goodness. It gives room for insects and rodents, which feed birds and the hawks and owls, and their poop and bodies feed the ground and the plants again. All people care about is the liability issues. Motherfuckers. When all the beautiful fierce hawks are gone, will you think about the dead trees then? I guess not likely.

The tree had also been a fixture of my front yard for a long time, we climbed it as kids, and enjoyed the then-bounteous shade of its large leaves. Now the fig tree is starting to take over in the big-leaved shade department, though it will be quite a while before it is as big as this one was in its heyday. Because the issue wasn't going to rest until something was done, I contracted to have just the dead parts removed, and in so doing removing the aforementioned engine of biodiversity. They'll be around today or tomorrow. I stood around the front yard, disgruntled, talking to myself and the plants.

"Don't you just hate them? Don't you hate the humans?"

A hoverfly came over my head and stopped stock still, hovering fairy-like against the sky, and this made me smile. Something was communicated?

"Don't sweat it bro. We're here. We endure. We've always been here."

 It is humans who are actually threatened with disappearing into unreality, even as they continue to exist. Zombies. Perhaps the reason why zombie fiction is so popular, is that on some level we realize that it's happening. Zombies in business suits, walking down Madison Avenue, checking their stock portfolios on their Blackberries. The body lives, the mind has gone elsewhere.

And so the dead wood will go, the half-dead tree lives for the moment.

ADDENDUM 7/19/2013

The lack of foliage on this tree has had an unexpected bonus, which is that our fig tree which would otherwise be in its shadow is benefiting and has borne forth an unexpected bounty of ripe figs. :) That's the cycle of life I guess, one creature's misfortune is another's boon. In this case a personal boon to me, as I have been eating ripe figs for breakfast every morning for a few days now and this morning had enough for breakfast and a full tray of figs to dry in the oven. Nummies. :)