For all the movement it was making, it was very silent. For all the movement around it, it was still very silent. At six stories tall, it was, like most New Yorkers, very slender. No longer green, one immediately knows this one has been around the block for many years. When my mother met my father, across the seas, it was here. When the Empire State Building was the tallest of its kind, it was here. When I had my coffee this morning, it was, still, here.

When the jackhammers were going in the pre dawn hours today, it shed a few. When the man in the hardhat leaned against it to eat his sandwich in peace, it shed a few more. Every time one sheds a few, like this one, they bare just a little more. In a place where exposing oneself is deemed a weakness, it’s rare to see such unapologetic yet silent display of openness.

In a city where everyone is racing to find their place and their purpose, in a world where all things struggle to define themselves, it has in its lack of efforts, found it.

Maybe it knows. Maybe it’s sad. Mayhaps it laughs. Or maybe it knows that in a few months it will only be what was there before the tall building took its place. But my tree is still silent.

(Originally published on November 15th, 2005)