OSAGE BLACK

Just outside the wall at Fort Harrod stands what is arguably the oldest living osage orange (hedge apple) tree in the country.  It's trunk, split in two, keeps this beautiful, complicated thing out of the record books.  The possibility that this may be two separate, distinctly unrelated things, with only their incidental physical closeness as a connection, doesn't change my perception: That of a single thing interrupted.  Set apart by weight, a fleetin' difference of direction not even recognized.

I captured this image a couple years ago- late in the day, late in the year-  while visitin’ with a long-ago lover and grandchildren. 

I cropped it square ‘cause this worked best for me.  

I put it in a box.

As the kids played and climbed, squealin’ and fussin’, their Mimi shoutin' words of caution as I “spotted”, I looked up, the bare branches silhouetted against the gray sky.  I drew in the cool air.  Lonely.

I was overwhelmed.  I realized my heart was broken and there was no repair.

I think about that day often.  This image, the split of the trunk, the continuin' branches, everything movin' further and further away.  It all seems to mirror so many of the feelings of that day, and the things I feel when I remember...

That thing: "It's complicated"...?  That falls so far short of what this has me recall. 

Better the image.  

Clearer the sadness, my failure.  My mistakes that now stand irreparable.  

A crime with many victims, for which the blame is ultimately mine to bear.

Please forgive me.

Fish~