Dead Tree Holding Up The Moon

More about Dead Tree Holding Up The Moon

There’s a tree out in the water that everyone calls the Dead Tree. It’s not really dead—it just got tired of pretending to be alive. One night, long ago, it decided to stop growing leaves and start holding things instead. The first thing it held was a cloud. The second was a heron’s reflection. The third was the moon.

It’s been holding the moon ever since.

If you walk out there on a windless night, you can see it: black branches rising out of the silver water, a kind of underwater skeleton stretching itself toward heaven. The moon sits perfectly between the branches like an egg that forgot to hatch.

People in town used to say it was a bad omen. They said the moon got stuck when God wasn’t looking, and the Dead Tree grabbed it before it could fall into the sea. The fishermen would cross themselves, muttering about tides and balance and other things men pretend to understand.

But I always thought the tree was kind. Someone had to hold the moon. Someone had to give the night a place to rest.

Sometimes I imagine the moon whispering to the tree. It tells stories about places it’s been—the deserts, the rooftops, the lovers who still believe in poetry. The tree listens, quiet and patient. It doesn’t answer. It knows that words are like leaves: they fall off eventually.

In winter, the sea freezes around the trunk, and the whole world feels like a postcard that forgot to be mailed. The light is so soft you can almost hear it. If you stand close enough, you can smell salt and memory mixing together.

Once, I dreamed I walked across the frozen water and climbed the tree. The bark felt warm, like the skin of something breathing. When I looked up, the moon blinked. Just one slow blink, as if to say, “Thank you.” Then it went back to pretending it was just light.

When I woke, there was frost on the window shaped like small black branches. Out beyond the glass, the sea was still. The moon had slipped free from the tree’s arms, floating upward, pale and grateful.

But sometimes—on nights when the air smells like wet paper and forgiveness—I can still see it. The Dead Tree, waist-deep in silver water, holding the moon like a memory that refuses to let go.

And I think: maybe that’s what love really is. Just something old and tired, standing quietly in the dark, holding up someone else’s light.