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Tangible Dreams of Domestic Bliss

     alone as a tree bumping another tree in a storm
     that’s not really being alone, is it
                                                      —Frank O’Hara

We can’t decide, can we?  To be a hermit or to
rub elbows with all manner of humanity, in which
case, to take the good with the bad, the uppity
with the lowly.  Or to tuck oneself neatly out of

sight and remain in that unsightly location for as
long as we can stand it.  The best of both worlds,
which is neither, actually, might be that tree that
bumps constantly into another during a storm.

Are there only two of them?  Are they in the thick
of this stormy tree kingdom, with hundreds of tree
neighbors, yet only able to rub elbows with that
one close neighbor?  Oh, but to imagine the loneli

ness, the sheer isolation, the desolation, of being
so mobile and immobile simultaneously, all caught
up in the frightening storm, only able to touch that
one constant companion, and only the one, and only

when the wind has been kicked up by a storm of some
magnitude.  One can imagine the loneliness that with a
bit of focus, or a distinct concentration upon the singular
mess in which one would consistently remain, if one were

that tree.  Or perhaps the storms, when they come, are
a sort of sexual awakening, creating within the banging
tree (the one that is banging, not the one banged? how 

sad!) a sort of hope. A relief from that interminable isola

tion. How being so firmly rooted into the ground, even 

with all the jostling and banging which might occur only

during a storm, or a wild and uneven wind coming from
where?  How could the tree know?  What a family those

two trees could have of each other within what might
otherwise be a tumultuous and frightening existence!