Bowing to the old maple

There's an old bigleaf maple on my walk to the bus, trunk thick with moss and licorice ferns, easily two hundred years old. I've bowed to it every morning since we moved to Seattle. My neighbors think I'm very polite to trees. I am.

This morning there was low fog, and as I bowed, every leaf on the lowest branch let go at once. Not a gust. No wind at all. They just came down around me like someone emptying a basket.

Back home, a tree like that would have a shimenawa rope tied around it. Here it has a parking sign. I don't think the kami minds. I stood there in the leaves feeling very much greeted.