Walking home I see myself on the cement.
The moon behind me, raining rays of milky white.
I follow my own shadow down the sidewalk
Carved out of the Earth by city employed men.

Abruptly my shadow collides with another.
A larger, more ominous shadow.
It was that of a tree.
It's branches long and sadly twisted.
As if it had arthritis.

An abandoned bird's nest swayed in it's skeletal fingers.
Falling gradually from the tree's gnarly grasp.
Where a family may have once had a picnic in the shade.
But the wind robbed the nest
Because the tree could no longer hold it proudly in the air.

I paused for a moment more,
And then pushed on.
Thinking how like the tree
I may become in my old age.