The Lion Oak

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Jeanne calls it the lion oak because once at dusk when she was driving up the road she saw a mountain lion on one of its thick lower limbs. But the tree is a lion in its own right too: a magnificent being, a king in our canyon, a silent sentinel to a passing century or two.

When my daughter was a little girl, the lion oak served as a prop for a math assignment. She estimated its height by comparing shadow lengths, measured the circumference of its massive trunk with an insufficient tape measure, carefully avoiding the poison oak on the side nearest the creek, and put her arms around it afterwards as far as they could go just to feel its solidity and strength. I can still picture her there when I pass that tree, a small brown-haired child, a little bit wild, a girl who felt at home here.

My daughter of course is faraway but the trusty old tree still stands. Last night on an impulse we took a walk to see it. The moon peered through its branches, waxing poetic, lovesick and loathe to leave. Indeed many love and have loved the old lion oak, but it belongs to itself.

The tree reveals itself differently depending on the light or the mind set of the viewer. Last night its bark looked gray and scarred and vulnerable up close, and some of us were sad, absorbing losses in our personal lives, horrified by what had happened in Orlando in the early hours of that particular day, dismayed by the political scene and wanting so much to believe that our nation is better than that spectacle.

But we also felt an unequivocal sense of wonder and reassurance in the presence of the tree.  And you might have laughed to see us standing there, looking up at it, endlessly fascinated.  The soundtrack was frog song and rustle of leaves.