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Innocence, a Casualty of Maturity
Innocence once lost is never rediscovered.
I was sitting with my back against an aging poplar. The tree, no more than twenty centimeters in diameter, stood in the little inner-city park for decades. As far back as I could remember, it had always been the same size.
For years it looked as if it was going to shrivel and give up the valiant ghost that slept within the branches, and yet it survived. Cloistered in a cement frame with imprisoning iron grill at its base, it was forever inhibited. Freedom may have been in its roots, fighting bravely among the cement and steel bars of the plaza base. The nurturing tendrils wrapped and twisted around the underground sewers lines, water pipes and optic fiber cables. The fingers of its existence weaved hopefully downward searching for sustenance.
The trunk was stiff and unforgiving on my back. I wondered if it was the wisest place to sit. I was sure every dog from blocks around had visited the tree and left its unwelcome testament to territory on its bark. Was I leaning on that?
Yet the bark was clean, dry and respectable.
My head rocked back as my book fell to my lap. Splinters of sunshine tickled my cheeks like tiny ballet dancers. My eyes squinted, and I gazed across the baking cement surface. To suggest it was a park was a debasement of the…