The Things That Happen When Nothing's Happening

From this vantage point, I can see
the Seussian tree in the north corner
of my back yard. Stripped now of most
of her branches, her stark black skeleton
against the grey sky is lovelier than any
other tree out there. Though there is no
competition between them, I think she
knows she's an attention getter. We should
cut her down, I think, as I sit there on the bench
my neighbor's gave me in memory of my father,
but the truth is I love her determination
too much to take her down. Even in the fading
light, I see the small tips of new life
rising from her top and shattered sides
and what appears to be a nest woven
into her uppermost limb. I call her
Truffula--not original, but fitting. I reach down
for the drink I sat on the ground beside
me only to see a pair of eyes looking back
at me; less than half a walnut right there
by my big toe begging to be picked up
and examined, asking me to think about
how it got there, no walnut tree around here
that I know of, and before I can think too
much about ending my sentence with a preposition,
three rabbits come out from beneath the magnolia,
startled to find me sitting there examining
the monkey-eyed walnut, startling me
so that I drop it and it hits my big toe
and bounces into a patch of new grass,
which the rabbits may have been looking
for when they found me looking for peace
on that bench, staring at the tree, thinking
about my father, not worrying about errors
or mistakes or what went wrong. Only living
it, life, out there in the back, so far from alone.