The Sanitarium Window

A small stand of trees, unremarkable. I don't know their names. They're like a knot of folks waiting for a train, or for a store to open —a gathering, that's all. They don't seem to know each other. They didn't plan to be together there in a field of weeds. Yet, on second look, they are remarkable, having stood the invisible winds of winter, stood the bitter season that comes to each alone, that separateness of sickness —mind and soul—there in the bent of trees. The trees seem to know all about winter. Seem to have winter in their bones. Perhaps someone else would see them differently, a different reflection, a family gathering, not just a knot. Some might see them that way. Some might see them differently. And I too, perhaps, on a different day. The others around me, others by the window, silently looking out —I can see us reflected in the window when the light is just right. Another stand of trees, a knot, not planning to be together here in a field of weeds.