Out walking with Red, we came upon an ancient cottonwood tree, standing like a giant fork in the forest. Into that fork another tree had fallen, so that the original cottonwood stood straight while the dead fallen tree leaned into its crux, and every breeze made the live tree groan as the dead trunk rubbed against it, it was the sound of a balloon roughly handled, or metal failing underwater, like a natural cello's lowest string rubbed raw of its rosin. Eventually the dead tree had worked a groove in the crotch of the live one, and with the passage of time was wearing its way downward, splitting it down the middle. One main arm of the live tree had died, and owls and birds and other things have made their apartments in the soft dry flesh. Rachel and I stare up at this natural saw and we take one another's hands instinctively as if to assure ourselves that the rubbing of one life against another life means warming, not tearing.
Love comes into our life but life comes to an end.
When my stepdad was dying of a brain tumor, we hired a barber named Dave to come round every week. Dick didn't have a hair on his head, after chemo, not one, but he liked talking to Dave, who also sold insurance and awnings. Dave would pretend to cut hair for half an hour or more, chatting about the kids today, or an open lot where a supermarket might go. I think he was pleased to be served, to be the man, that ghost hair was still coming out of him, unstoppable, wild. When Dave was done he carefully brushed the excess off, shook the cloth off on the porch, let nothing ride away on air.