monday night, burning a childhood tree

growing up, my parents' house had a one-acre back yard. this was mostly lawn, almost weed-free, and was great for frisbees or racing around with the dog. the yard was ringed by trees: poplar, oak, white pine, an apple tree, a towering willow, and various large trees i never identified.

off to the side was a corkscrew willow, a densely branched willow with (obviously) corkscrew-shaped branches, twisting like cartoon pigs' tails up in a graceful burst, tipped with long, slender leaves like the gigantic 'normal' willow on the opposite side of the yard. due to the density of the branches, this was a prime climbing tree, despite the relative thinness of the limbs. i stayed close to the trunk, was considerate of the tree's ability to support me, and weighed next to nothing myself.

a couple years ago, the tree came down in a storm, and my dad slowly cut it up, stacking the wood as he had time. i was sad about this, but felt that his was just another in a long (never-ending, actually) string of changes. the things you grew up with die, break, move away, are replaced. this is not news.

this past fall, when our expected source of firewood didn't pan out, diana and i collected what wood we could as the snow started to fly, and my dad and i spent some time chainsawing the larger remaining branches of the corkscrew willow into about 15-inch sections, ideal for my tiny wood stove. they stacked in my garage with other small collections from various local trees, and dried as best they could.

i'm sitting here at the kitchen table, drawing a glorious parade scene for a poster for a concert in washington DC, the night before obama's inauguration. it's snowing out here in evanston, the temperature is supposed to drop below zero for the next several days, and we expect blizzard conditions in the morning.

as i move to put more wood in the wood stove, where seth and ocho are asleep, i look at the twisted branch about the size of my forearm, and recognize it as my corkscrew willow. i remember hanging upside down from this tree, climbing it with various neighborhood kids. i remember cicadas, bats, and bee hives. i think of the daffodils that grew at the base of this tree, the area just south of the tree which would flood during thunderstorms, and camping in my tent near this tree.

the wood goes into the fire, sits briefly above the hot coals, and then bursts into flame.