"Hope Does Spring Eternal"

  "Hope springs eternal".  This is a partial quote from Alexander Pope in his poem "Essay on Man".  It is usually applied when one thinks that a situation is doomed but a small sliver of hope still gleams in the wings. That is how I saw it today.  "Hope springs eternal".  For years just outside the front door, two old black gum trees stood seemingly forever.  It is hard to kill these trees and even when one does die,  it is equally hard to take it down.  Hurricanes try their best to knock over the trees but to no avail.  Hurricane Katrina, with her fierce winds and extreme storm surge, could not fell one such tree that had been long gone due to flying squirrels chewing a colony of tunnels through the trunk.  The tree stood solid against all odds.  Now, twelve years later, the two trees near the door have met their demise due to the very same hurricane.  Old injuries from storm tossed debris were welcoming doors to wood boring beetles and now termites.  My two sentries that guarded the front door cease to live.  It saddened me as the trees provided shade from the harsh summer sun and blocked much wind from storms coming off the Bay.  

  This afternoon as I stood giving my last goodbyes to two steadfast friends, I noticed that hope does spring eternal.  A large section of one tree had rotted from the center outward.  The outer bark had been ruthlessly torn during Katrina tossing a deck (from across the Bay) into the tree.  The gash was a good four feet in length and probably a foot wide.  Trees were the least of our worries after the storm as we cleared the (ten feet deep) debris from around the house and made repairs.  It was far more important to rid the place of potentially disease carrying debris than worrying about the health of a tree. Eventually, the borers moved in and gutted the tree.  But...from death comes life.  Today, I found that the very same wound that killed the tree brought forth a new life.  

  Where the core of the tree had sifted down into the shell of bark, a arrowhead philodendron had taken root.  A nearby hanging plant had sent a tendril reaching out until it found the soft mulch inside the hollow tree.  The new shoot took root and now stands as a completely separate plant.  The new tendrils dangle gracefully from the gaping wound of the old tree.  The tree, itself, had become a "pot" for the new plant. Hope and life springs eternal when given a chance to take root.  There is always an answer if we only look for it.