The branch snaps

There’s an oak tree just outside my study window and I came downstairs the other morning to see branches had snapped off in the night. Someone had carefully ringed the area with ‘danger’ tape already – some of my neighbours seem to keep early hours – and the damaged tree was in the centre of the frame with the snapped branches hanging down – not completely severed but unsafe and hanging by a thread. I was struck by the old oak, wounded but standing tall, the moss on the trunk and on the branches, and the network of smaller branches and twigs now separated from the main source of life and sustenance. It being February, there are no leaves, the tree is bare. For the disconnected limbs, there will never be leaves.

There’s something in this which speaks about our own root system, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. Cut off from the roots we risk death – again mental, emotional or spiritual, maybe even physical. Naturally, unlike the tree, we are mobile, more able to put down new roots, designed to move around. Nonetheless there are dangers here.

When a branch breaks off, we can be torn apart. I’m thinking here of bereavement but also of the ending of relationship, the inability we sometimes experience to heal, apologise, forgive. I’m also conscious that the aftermath of the broken branch could have something to say to us. The afternoon saw the tree surgeons arrive. They cleared the space up with speed and efficiency, tidied up the mess and left. Now, as I look at the tree, I don’t see a messy jagged wound but three clean sawn through ends where the branch system had been. The chain saws had effected a clean ending. That’s something we also need - to feel that all has been said, that we can move on, but we’re often less good at doing the tidying up and healing, not least because we can’t leave it to the tree surgeons.

As I look out of my window now, the old oak stands tall, ready to survive for many more years. Maybe we can as well.

Amputation

Oak tree
old and solid

on the ground
broken branches

tape flutters
red and white

strung round cones
to keep us out

life clings 
to severed limbs

a short time only

while the tree recovers
grows ever stronger

with only the clean ends 
where once were branches

reminders of pain