In Memory of the Lad Charlie B.

The tree isn’t much to look at. Spindly, bare, pushing up from mud at the bottom of a swale. Spindly due to its location. Bare due to an exhausting combination of highway wind and oncoming autumn. These are unavoidable facts of existence.

Humor resides in this tree. After all, who willingly decides to sink its roots to grow up bracketed by galvanized guard rails, in the middle of a nondescript median? That is a black sense of humor or bad luck for the seeds, depending on the lens that receives the image.

Admire the tenacity of the leaves as the cars rush by, flailing in the watery light of a dying sun. The leaves work for it. They hang on. Soon they will probably fall. That is life.