52 images of the tree in the grass next to McDonald's

17 August, 2008, Amy Sahba
Courtesy of every morn and eve

1. is it green or yellow?
2. quiet. but behind glass everything is quieter. (colder). farther away. harder to reach.
   
3. like airplane windows. (cold) (father away now). harder to reach. (i'm here)
4. well rooted. it owns that spot. that spot belongs to him.her
5. she's smiling.
   
6. (a car drives past)__(she trembles)__(she can hear everything) __hi? (she can't hear me)
7. wrong language. she is beyond semantics. meaning means something else.
8. at Flinders Uni, there was a tree like her (her brother). under it i first read Prufrock. Dante. Schopenhauer. a girl asked me out. - what are you listening to?
   - the Mozart requiem
   - i sing that!
   - really?
   - yeah. i'm this choir... we sing __that. __the requiem. __Mozart. [nervous smile]
   (she's standing, i'm sitting)
   - cool.
   - yeah.
   - [smile. awkward silence]
   - wanna hang out sometime?
   - really?
   - sure. __why not, could be fun.
   - will you sing for me?
   - [genuine laugh] you're serious?
   - sure. why not. could be fun.
   - [shakes head] sure, why not, could be fun.
   
   we never went though
   
   
9. another car. motion. stillness. motion. stillness. motion. stillness. the tree doesn't mind. she's happy where she is in life.
   
10. get one shot to pick that spot. you better get it right. (i'm scared) tree responds: i was too
    
11. she hears me.
    
12. she nods.
    
13. her leaves, some of them have fallen at her feet, some still on her trunk. she has a dress of yellow leaves. she holds a yellow bouquet. marry me?
14. she laughs. (you're too young for me)
15. larger than most trees. but so decidedly feminine. i can smell her through the glass. jasmine. sandstone. deserts. hamseen (dust storms). the soil after it rains. tshirts women i love(d) slept in. piano stores. hot chocolate. women's hair.
    
16. wind. her leaves quiver. (she's flirting, throws her hair back like that for me) tease.
    
17. she giggles. covers her mouth.
    
18. another thing in life that doesn't need me.
    if you don't need me we can be silent together.
    i'm not silent.
    
19. her fingertips could be violins if they wanted to.
    her trunk is a double bass
20. somewhere, an oak edges an inch a year closer to her. somewhere, he loves her. (she doesn't respond)
21. she stands alone. only one tree, on grass. roads on either side.
    
22. she redeems the glass, she makes the glass necessary.
    
23. she redeems my eyes. she makes eyes necessary.
    
24. she redeems my vision. she makes vision unnecessary.
    
25. she redeems my dirty thoughts. she makes thought unnecessary.
    
26. how can we speak?
    by not thinking
27. by the tree at Flinders University, a young woman named Kate. I was copying the MATH101 homework
    - how was your weekend?
    - pretty good.
    - you?
    - great. had copious amounts of sex. (that was her phrase, I'll never forget it: copious)
    - [i feel sick i want to throw up]
    - [why? everyone does it]
    - [i know. i want to too]
    - [then do]
    - [i can't]
    - [why not?]
    - [i'm having a theophilosophical conundrum]
    - [what does that mean?]
    - [puberty i guess]
    - [hahah]
    - [i'm too young to be here]
    - [you're too young to be here]
    - [i'm going to go read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and find an answer]
    - [see you when you know]
    - thanks for the homework
    - no worries! see ya mate
28. this tree remembers all that. this tree is memory incarnate. if you snap a twig, you'll see, a purple cloud will flow out. on it, a miniature unicorn walks besides my sister (she walks). they speak to one another. Where you going Sahar?
    Shopping duuhh. i laugh. she laughs. they're all in there. every single one.
    
29. upside down (if i move my tray to another table, then recline with my back on the table, my legs flailing in the air for balance away, my head- now upsidedown closest to the glass) you look like you are falling. like you are holding the earth with everything you have in you. that your roots are muscular and that you are stressed.
    
30. rightside up: you defy gravity. you are slowly floating away. you are turning into a ghost. you are all soul and no body. one time, i'll wink, and when i open my eyes, you'll be floating away. a yellow/orange balloon with a brown string
31. i'll race you. first to ghost wins!
32. she sings Debussy's second arabesque to me
33. trees always sound like pianos to me
34. a car parks besides her. now i can't see her trunk. she is growing through the car. she is versatile.
    
35. a pimply teenager walks to the car. throws his backpack into the backseat. sits in the passenger seat up front. doesn't say a word. the car drives away.
    
36. the tree adjusts herself back into the ground. i have full view. again.
37. (my mother cries softly: you were too young. we should never have let you skip those grades. it's my fault)
38. the tree doesn't believe in fault.
    
39. nor statistics. nor error. nor statistical error.
    
40. stained-glass mirror
41. a painting by Pissaro i saw in LA
42. a dream i have sometimes. under this tree, i met a white-bearded man. twice. once before this life. Once after. He smiled both times. (His eyes too). He likes this tree. He told me that first time: He'd wait for me here.
    I'll be right back I said.
    He nodded
    
43. i don't know how you look in the rain. perhaps the color of spinach.
    
44. if i squint: a flower. a daffodil with honey for petals.
45. like a perfectly organized collection of red-bricks scattered besides a tall fireplace
46. like a family of almost still fireflies
47. like the point where autumn was born.
    
48. like the soul of autumn (it's winter now she tells me) __(the soul lives on in autumn)
49. the scarf mona gave me was this color. grey and a stripe of orange. it was autumn then. we walked up a hill. then back down the hill after dinner. the tree knows that. that's why i'm comfortable with her. she knows everything- i don't have any more excuses for why i'm the way i am. it's all my fault (the tree smiles, knowing that means nothing. gibberish). you're the sort of thing i want to sleep next to everynight. (some wind, she reaches out for me- i'll give you a hug, but you must be off babyboy)
50. i walk out. i can hear better now. see better. i purposefully pass beneath her. 28 paces out of my way, the two shorter sides of Pythagoras's triangle)
51. under her- she is the sky. she is the whole sky. there is no other sky.
    
52. by parallax: i am a shooting star, not yet extinguished. not falling, floating, flying, free, far, farsighted, phenomenal, phenomena, fast, facticity, fraidy-cat, formulaic, . __not__ f
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