Thick branches stretch low in every direction. Moss and small plants grow on the bark, and midday light leaking through the leaves scatters a mottled pattern across the dirt ground. The roots have pushed up above the soil and marked out the edge of the shade.
Walk in underneath it and the temperature of the air drops a layer. The breath grows longer, and shoulders that had been raised come down on their own. The soles of the feet read the rises and dips of dry earth and mossy roots one by one, and the eyes lose their focus into the distance.
What remains is impatience. The sense that something must be finished quickly keeps running on its own for a while after the body has stopped.
Try walking one circle around the tree. Walking while looking at which side the branches reached out farther, which face of the bark is rougher, it takes less than three minutes. After finishing the circle, how about standing again where you first stood.
The same three minutes pass at a bus stop as well. While standing and waiting for the bus, you can take a quick look at how much higher the shoulder carrying the bag strap sits than the other one. Because the morning light still comes in low at that hour, the difference in height shows up in the shadow too. Without trying hard to correct it, it is enough just to note which side is higher.
It would have taken a hundred springs for this tree to spread this far.
