Memorial Oak

What killed the oak tree?

It was not clear why the great oak in front of the group of nine around the yard should have died when it did. The other oaks knew but wouldn’t tell me. It could have been its proximity to the electric line and the years of harassment by the power company. However, what I finally noticed was that its shape, the way it bent forward and its major branches extended in arches — these were as if it had been born elegiac. It was from the beginning an oak of remembering. As it lived, it reviewed and remembered. It was forever an oak of the past. It was never sorry, it was always ready, it was never just living.