I passed by that tree the other day.
The one nestled between two thorn bushes
and just past a ravine
along the upper trail of Old Man’s Cave in Hocking Hills,
surrounded by two thousand acres or so
of dense forest.

I laughed to myself because
The old birch hadn’t changed since I had last seen it.
But it certainly felt different.

The same gray cloak of bark
covered the tender matter inside.
Golden foliage still swayed above me
like it did on that brisk November afternoon.

Today is brutally brisk,
but I have to admit that I did stop for a second to reminisce
under the once comforting blanket of its shadow.
I fixed my now nostalgic, sepia-toned gaze on the bark
and traced my fingers over the scar that we left.

I remembered looking for the perfect one with you.
It was this one, we both thought.
And so were you, at least I thought.

My cold blade carved into the robust fortress of its surface
exposing the birch’s reddish-tan, natural finish underneath.
It then became our tree,
not just any tree, in a forest, on a planet full of them.

I remembered you telling me a couple months back about
how much you admired trees,
and how I should read Trees. Reflections and Poems
by Hermann Hesse, and I did almost immediately.

“Trees are sanctuaries.”
was our favorite quote from the poem, we decided.
And it was the most relevant.
Our tree had become a grand symbol
that would carry in our memory,
what it meant to love and be loved.

But now its just that,
another tree in a forest
that we scarred.
And that, now, scars us.