A place called Creek Song

That's Mom's beech tree framing the scene. About 47 years ago, Mom went downtown to get some groceries and while she was gone, her son-in-law, married to my oldest sister, cut down the beechtree overtop the well. Mom was fit to be tied when she came back and her tree was gone. The hootowl who also loved that tree was not seen again after that. The window that had tree branches for a view looked out onto a very large tree stump and to the weeds beyond.

Last spring, about this time of the year, we went up to see the old home place and there was Mom's beech tree come back, a sproutling had shot up from where the old one grew so long ago. When I saw that beech tree all back again, a little half-thought came along to whisper things do come back.

We were in another space after that trip. It seemed we acted without ourselves being in the story, as if we were the actors who'd read the script or were being directed where to turn and what to say. We called the fellow who now owned our little piece of earth. We'd asked before and got a laugh, "Nah, might do something with it someday."

I'd missed that place for so long, and if you look back at the entries a year ago, you'll see that right around the time of Mom's birthday, March 21st, I did a walkabout on that place, saw every inch of it in my thoughts, the way you sometimes think your children back home when they're out somewhere.

So, we called the fellow. He told us a neighbor has been hitting him up for the place for awhile. But he's not too keen on that particular neighbor. We could almost see his shrug. "I do need the money right now, and... I'm not going to do anything with it, I just keep thinking I will." And he sold it to us.

Sometimes things do come back.