A prose poem.
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Like a Tree
Once upon a time I was young and on the lookout for metaphors. They’d appear like boxelder bugs; I found them everywhere. About that same time, I hiked up the Rose Lake Cliff that overlooks Canada. On top, 400 feet above almost everything, the wind blew hard and fast all the way from Lake Winnipeg. It pummeled an old spruce tree that grew like Yoda from the rocks, battering it this way, yanking it that way. I imagined how many winters this tree had endured, exposed to the icy blast of Arctic snow, how it tapped a meager living from the cleaved rock. Its will to live was great. Its fortitude, vast. It personified sisu, a Finnish word my Aunt Nedra said means perseverance beyond reason. Midwestern Scandinavian to the core, I recognized that tree! Steadfast Brother! Rock-Cleaver! While I observed and marveled, the tree uprooted in the gale, and disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Several years later, a pernicious cancer toppled my Aunt Nedra, a reminder that there is a place even farther beyond reason. Her absence is a loud silence. But, oh, I honor her sisu life.