Canopy
GABY BEDETTI
To come home to a tabby talking at me through the storm door, our white house, framed by a dogwood, a red Japanese maple and a honey locust, a swamp white oak on the street, its branch tips on the ground, dropped by squirrels who take more than they need to build a nest. Then to walk through the house to the back yard where a gingko replaces the sheltering shadows of our late yellowwood, clusters gone of fragrant, pea-like flowers, a shower of white then yellow delicate winter branches, the hammering of woodpeckers, diving squirrels. To sit under our black gum tree on one of the stumps saved in tribute to our yellowwood, busy carpenter ants invading its remains, grinding it down to sawdust. Then to look up at our newest tree, a thirty-foot white oak, growing into its space in our canopy, overlooking a white pine seedling I’ve been tending for three years. Like a jungle canopy, my mother’s arms, the bosom of Abraham, the trees keep me alive. Their voice in the wind