This bare ground is the best ground for planting a tree. There is opportunity there to bring forth something new, to build, to dig, to strike out and prosper for a future shade under a hot sun. There is, also and always, the anxiety of not knowing what lies beneath; the hard rock of the impenetrable crust or the fertile loam of new growth. To plant this tree will require the hardened pick point and the polished edge of this spade. A small honest toil. And the hope of all hope, that the things we do may last just a little while longer than us.

Here by the ball field is where this white oak will grow. Balled and burlapped, I can see my youth rolling out before me in the bullpen that the oak will shade, creeping over the left field fence, the warning track, the scoreboard on which the game was tallied. I am running again on the field, I can feel the dirt crushing under my feet. It’s a cold, early winter now, but in this young tree I can smell the spring already, next spring, and all those springs that have passed away. They are trapped, I know, here in the soil. And they feed this new day all of a sudden. I dig them up like one digs up old coins. I find those springs and summers again as I plant this white oak, this fountain along the field and the road.

Swinging the pick now, I’m shaping the hole. I know this place for the root ball is temporary at it’s edges, this place here I am striking down through. Eventually, the roots will radiate outward, they will grow out under the bleachers and out under the road and out under the batting cage. The roots will rupture through the soil in waves, sending ripples through the earth. The small limbs that I free up from the bailers’ twine will follow suit, they will twist and turn, they will follow the path of the sun. They will end up hovering over how many future ball games, hovering under how many night skies. The leaves will erupt every spring, and every fall they will flutter and dance on the wind and land softly on the grass. Maybe they will land far away from here.

I roll the little tree into the planting hole and backfill the cold, clean soil around the roots. I’ve cultivated a little bit of the past, a gardener in my own life too. My shoulders and lower back inherit that grace of laying a tool into bare ground, and this, I think is the honesty of hope. I lay a blanket of mulch around the little tree. And then planting the little tree is done. From here on we are radiating outward from where we started, sending ripples through the earth that will maybe reach us again.