They’ve chopped down my favorite tree. I used to like to sit under it in the summer, look at it, contemplate its strangeness, take refuge in its presence. It seemed as if two trees were growing out of the same trunk, strecthing in different, though not opposite, directions. In one part of it, someone put what looked like concrete in a depression, making lines that make it resemble a brick wall, right in the middle of a living tree. I’ve taken dozens of pictures of this tree over the years, in different seasons, from different angles, in different light. I liked walking by it. When I was depressed I would go sit near it. Now it has been replaced, like most green space here at Wayne State university, by some new construction project. A unique tree surrounded by a series of benches is replaced by the smell of tar and a pile of rubble, surrounded by a fence blocking off the sidewalk.
