The wind roared all night long the day this tree was blown over in a terrible storm.  Branches were ripped from trees as they flung to and fro in the storm.  The willow above is the favorite climbing spot of neighbor's children.  The wind warped it until it broke and fell onto our fence and the RV parked beside it.  No damage was done to anything other than the tree.  The kids will miss having the tree.  They loved to look over the fence and say, "Neighbor," over and over again until we heard them.

Nature changes the landscape.  Uplift and erosion.  Subsidence and deposition.  Almost as soon as we emerge into the world, we become a target for the elements.  The wind, water, fire and earth of the world buffet us, scour us, shape us and impede us.  Not even lava moves on the surface of the planet as fluidly as do the living beasts that inhabit it.  The crust is bursting at the seems, and a host of protein based organisms crawls along the crust that floats atop the mantle of molten life blood.  As soon as anything, organic or inorganic, moves above the surface, forces begin the process of wearing it down to level, then beyond as the surface itself is carved anew.

The children's voices, my vision of them playing, the snow covering this tree and the thought I am thinking, was thinking, am still "was" thinking, will not be drawn down by gravity.  They are not subject to those physical laws.  Who knows where these concepts go, but gravity appears to have no sway in the domain of thought and soul.   Could the place where thoughts collect be known as heaven?