by Carolyn Creed
Huffy, its vantage
on hasteners eastbound,
this tree, planted midway
between Brandon and Winnipeg,
looks to bunch its branches
many arms akimbo, and ask,
"What have you done,
traveler who needs to flee?"
And helpless before its hip-pressed query,
I gave up: ended my last trip broken down.
This tree does not count
as the real halfway tree.
The proper, authorized one
faces the western-aimed,
inspires fights to preserve
its roots, en route; widespread,
it would occupy a lane
of flat, straight highway
if not held back, metal-barriered
from road brink.
The one I sit under
dulls the driver's gaze
in such a manner that the eye
wanders beyond, to what
lucky souls west-facing see:
friend-found outreach.
The real tree's branches counsel
a picnicker's stopover.
Meanwhile, on the side
that broke me down
(that is, that broke my car down,
car and I, both split at the seals),
all is silence, accusatory.
Denied the sunset-dappled welcome
of the real tree, I can see
contours, lineaments of mortality,
cracks in my reflection like gnarled bark
from the tow-truck's shut side-window.
Here we may think we're observing
a marker for the halfway point
(same again still to come),
when in truth, we are barely likely
to make it to that patch
of eye diversions, red willows
whip-waving relentlessly
above the gloomy meridian
between pretend and authentic,
a pair of landmark witnesses,
each one the Halfway Tree.