There once were trees, and will be again,

growing around the foundations of the little anchor hold, including one just outside my bedroom window that was growing up into the gutters. They've all been chopped down several times before --- tree roots are not good for cream-city-brick foundations. But, the driving force of life is just too strong to be held back [for life is the true thing and the union, death the absence and the division] by mere axes, loppers, and saws. There's a kind friend in the neighborhood who's been coming over the last couple of months and chopping at my unwanted forest. He knows I can't pay him in more than koolade but he doesn't care; he says he'd rather fight my ailanthus and boxelder for cold koolade than go do stuff for folk who say they'll pay and then stiff him. It's a losing proposition. The one next to the front porch that was obscuring the house number sign he cut down to the earth in Easter week, and now it's back, about 18 inches tall and healthier than ever. But he persists. Today he got the one outside my bedroom window, that was chopped down in 2001, and in 1998, and was sprayed with roundup in 1996 after being chopped in 1995, and so on. Now it's gone again, and the sun shines into the window again. Until 2006 or so......

We continue to labor, because we have hope.
Unfortunately for us, the trees have hope too.
.