Spitball Army

I. Father was born beneath the sway of California palms; in death, he is surrounded by their less majestic South Carolina cousins.

II. Deprived of a pine box, his ashes were stored inside a bedroom closet, with no chance to nourish the soil of young tree roots.

III. His childhood friends had nowhere to visit him. Their community cemetery, forested and verdant, bore no marker with his name.

IV. In Spring, they memorialized his life by planting a young sycamore in the grass near the old Mission, where his ancestors lay.

V. The son, absent from home since his father’s death, visited the sycamore monument seven years after it was placed in the earth.

VI. At his feet, scattered in the grass, were seed pods, fallen leaves, bark peelings. A parade of ants circled up the tree trunk.

VII. He set a plaque at the foot of the tree, which now reached skyward with maturity. Polished granite mirrored passing clouds.

VIII. “In memory of…,” the stone carving read, stating his full name. “Tree planted by his friends, Nadine and Forey Rounds.”

(photo: spitballarmy.com)