The Death of a Tree

Day 19 - 10:34am, 19 January 2019

There's a Christmas tree in the water, you can see it just beyond the tree branches. I wonder that someone would go to the effort of getting it there. It is close to the bowling club side of the river, so either they have had to go through the bowling club to dump it there, or it's been lobbed from the other bank - and no, it's not a huge Christmas tree, but it would still have required some force to propel it so far. However, thinking about it now, the most likely option is that the tree had been left out on the street awaiting council pickup and someone has decided to use it for a game of giant Pooh sticks. Having been tipped over the bridge, it has then floated a little further downstream before grinding to a halt where it has. 

The tree looks odd, its straight lines marring the softness of all that surrounds it. The fact that the trunk has been cut has severed its roots; one more thing that humanity has denuded, all for the sake of having a 'Christmas' tree. We have objectified it, turning the tree from a living, life-giver to a dead or dying decoration. No matter how much we dress it up in bright colours and twinkly lights, we are just waiting for the tree to die. And so I mourn the lost chances for the birds to sit on the branches of this tree, for it to be part of a forest of trees, and to die a natural death. Its open grave haunts me.