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Sapta


The Ambitions of the Cedar

We bought our house unaware of the ambitions of the cedar tree in our front yard. With ease, it dwarfed all of my own--prone as I am to the ideal--quadrupling its size in seven years, or 28 seasons, beginning with the summer we moved in, until now, this winter, when we had it cut down.

In a few more years it would have threatened the foundation of our home, the arborist told us, clearly a man who knows his trees and loves them. None of us wanted to remove it, especially this season when the rains had returned and plumped up its base and its color and its dense green branches after it had made do with so little water so long.

Already, a hummingbird had made its nest deep inside the branches. Earlier still and much higher up than last year, this mother bird returned and placed her nest and her faith in the resoluteness of this tree. Cedars by nature are known for their durability as sometimes people are not--fickle as we have proven to be even about foundational things.

Right now, on the front stoop, sits her empty nest and the cedar branch she built it on. I cannot yet bring myself to throw them away. It is enough that we have removed the immense shadow of green the tree spread across my office window, which faced it--often with me in the frame--through every one of its seasons. For me, the cedar was its own window. On my best days, I could see right through it: A clear view of calm abiding.

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