Day 27: Why/When bad things happen to good palm trees

Take this one: transplanted as an adult,
chosen to landscape the grounds of the church.
It must have been a good palm tree to be chosen, right?
Done something right
made good choices—
its life plan set in front of it
and promises being fulfilled.
By all appearances, a good tree.

Perhaps at one point
it felt there was dissonance in
expectations there—
when the wind would blow sea breezes and
scents that stirred a kind of memory
(if a tree has a memory) and
realization set in: it didn't want this—
this prescribed pattern of being it was fixed in—
and so it could not perform anymore.

It hit just like a raindrop
suddenly but with hardly a notice
not enough to make a splash and gradual—
driving past you could tell it wasn't flourishing
anymore, (had it ever?)
illness had set in. Weak enough to die.

Every other tree remained green, able
to focus having retained
their ability to photosynthesize.