strange to think of the past so recent it hardly seems past, but that's what a violent event does. everything is cut. there's a before and after and a deep and narrow slice in time abject, this is already going back though the cut is still fresh in mind, and i can still smell the life of the trees suddenly, violently released, yet the scent is of sweet peace, of life connected and breathing and never doing harm. now the park is lost to us, and all the trees are dead, and there is nothing but a plot, no sign that they were there, other than the memory of the trees and the soil breathes the long growing memory up through the absent canopy.