He feels for the tree that did not survive yesterday’s storm. He mourns its removal from his yard, his life, the world. He knows that nothing is ever created or destroyed, that everything cycles through being and nonbeing, that he himself is already tree. And will be becoming tree again. He knows that trees that have preceded him will proceed from him. He knows that he will follow the tree in its demise: a midlife cut short and cut down. The tree trees, yes. But no, the universe trees, if we can reduce all of being and nonbeing to such a simple term, to the pure metaphoricity of tree. The tree removes impurities from the air, provides his daily breath. He remembers the mantra that presented itself to him in Japan: I breathe in the universe, the universe breathes in me. He know that that I presents itself as the trunk of his identity, erect and swaying in the breeze and now unnecessary as a cipher of his being. The tree has escaped all recognition, all thought. Fractured, fallen, and felled. The buzz of the chainsaw in the distance.