A pine forest played in as a child where an old car rusted, sun streaming through bullet holes, rotting tires, the smell of pine now gone.


A hill with so many trees you couldn't see the sky so we played war, throwing dirt grenades, got poison ivy, such city kids. We were told it was once an Indian trail but we no longer played Cowboys and Indians. They filled that hill with hundreds of houses.


The road to the lake below the church none of us liked going to except my mother, is paved and there are perfect gardens in front of perfect homes, cars in driveways, one ostentatious house has the best Christmas decorations people come from miles away to see.


A plastic playground with no hard edges or places for graffiti was once full of maple, pine, oak, birch, sassafras, sycamore trees so wild and green intertwined, birds and wild bunnies, raccoon and deer happy.


No one prepares you for this. When warning of strangers, fire drills, or being careful crossing a road, no one says that someday the absence of trees will kill part of your soul.


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