A Cemetery Tree

Michael Hemphill

August 26, 2010

Some people believe that when you die, you come back in another life.  When I was young, I would play this game with my close friends.  I would ask, “if you could come back in another life, what would you be?”  They might have said, “a bird, a fish or a frog”.  It was all fun and games imagining a life under very different circumstances.  Now isn’t it funny how this question comes back to me over and over again in my life.  Just today I was struck with this old question while sitting alone in thought.  And you know what I came up with? 

A Cemetery Tree!  I thought, what a grand ambition!  How awesome to be admired and respected for my age and wisdom.  How comforting to know I would be cared for with so much love and attention.  The sorrowful would find solace under me.  Painters could paint me, and poets would let me weep when it rains.  Birds and animals could raise their young amongst my mighty limbs.  And I could greet each morning with a reach and a stretch and then kiss the sun.

Yep, I’m definitely thinking… cemetery tree.