The Wilderness Between

My place is still yellow. Well, maybe a bit more brown. While last week, the yellow was as bright and vibrant as lemons, this week it has faded to the yellow of apples. Spots of brown rot have eaten small holes in some of the leaves, and brown has coursed through the veins and muscles of the leaves. Soon decay will set in completely and nothing but the brown will remain.

Still the ivy remains vibrant and hardy green.

I wonder how difficult it is to remain so beautiful when everything around you is dying. I suppose that’s what such parasitic plants do though. For all its beauty, it gets its strength from the trees around it. Those leaves that have fallen on top of it, trying to bury its shameless face are like the children trying to hide a parent’s affair.

I should not be surprised, though. Such beauty has a steep price in the wild. Vibrantly feathered male birds build those colors by sacrificing nutrients from their frail bodies. Those colors that attract females also attract predators. It’s a bragging right. If I can sacrifice all of these nutrients for beauty and still haven’t been caught by a predator, then I must be a good mate, right?

Young male syndrome. It’s a short life, but filled with excitement, beauty, and fucking.

A tree in this patch of wild has recently fallen over. It’s a steep hill, and I’m honestly still impressed by how the trees grip so tightly at the soil with their roots. How they balance so precariously. But this one has fallen. It looks so sad and thin. I wonder what made it fall. If the wind simply puffed too hard one day, and the tree teetered to the ground.

Or perhaps it was that ivy, that dreaded beautiful ivy. It wrapped its seductive tendrils around its base, winding its way up the shaft. The poor tree didn’t even notice the small sips she took of the sweet soil nutrients. Not at first. By the time he noticed, he was hollow and aching. She was already inching along to the next victim, too engrossed with the chase to notice his protests. That’s when the wind came. That bully. Talk about hitting a tree when he’s down.

Everything seems to be falling. The tree, the leaves, the temperature. I can emphasize with Chicken Little. Soon, bits of blue will tumble down like bits of fluff on the currents of air. Or rather, snow, I suppose. Considering clouds are made of water, the sky will fall soon. Little frozen water crystals. I see that it’s supposed to snow as soon as Thursday!

I am both excited and apprehensive about the Pittsburgh winter. Snow is both as beautiful and as dangerous as the ivy. Though the flakes are soft and light, they stick together, muffling even sound. Travel becomes dangerous. They trip tires and befuddle boots. They’ve even been known to float right into an open eye.