Under the Hoop Tree

It was too perfect really, to make a pilgrimage this morning in honor of Earthday to the tree into which someone had flung a hula hoop, and find a pile of old discarded books stacked on a chair under it, a pile that included the one above. Soaked and warped, that photo melted my heart, those vulnerable, wide eyes, despair, confusion, fear, wonder, surprise, love, longing. Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue, even in April when umbrellas lie broken on the ground, even when the world seems to fall to pieces, even as we stand helpless in the face of the wrenching trials and tragedies we watch others go through or we go through ourselves.

One of my Buddhist friends associates pain with purification. I've learned enough to know that something can be horrible and sacred at the same time, like the truth. In Self-Reliance, Emerson wrote that even though something may look crooked from our close perspective, from far enough away, the line appears straight. Perhaps as impossibly straight as a mast pine. And perhaps from very far away, a broken hoop isn't broken.