My stepson, Brandon, and Lynn were sitting on the back porch Sunday, wondering why Marley was at the office working on Father's Day.
 
Why Marley was working on Father's Day is another story for another Monday.
 
Suddenly, the sound of all the rifles in Burnet County going off at the same time ripped the quiet afternoon apart. Deer shot out of the shadows and birds screamed out of the green. The top of our little forest folded in on itself; The giant grandfather Pecan twisted and split, crashing to the ground. Sixty seconds to silence.
 
For two hundred years, the old tree had stretched its roots into the shores of the lake. The Old Man survived centuries of shearing winds, lighting strikes and fire. Old Grandfather towered, a knotted apartment complex for woodpeckers, squirrels and honey bees. Children have swung from his arms over the ages, native children, the children of black slaves, the children of those who thought they owned them, and my grandchildren.
 
Gravity finally wins.
 
Later, Lynn and I walked down with our dogs to survey the effects of gravity and time. Bees still swarmed, squirrels still darted in and out of shadowed holes and woodpeckers feasted on what brought the Old Man down.
 
Termites.
 
The monstrous trunk and its giant limbs were hollowed, home for the millions of wood eating, gravity equalizers.
 
Old Grandfather Pecan commanded awe.
 
So do the termites.
 
In all things grand and in all things small, study the why of it all. In the least of these things, find the giant. In the giant, find the small.

Marley Porter