Prowling around the empty nighttime suburbs with headphones on, trying to figure out if this tree in someone’s yard is a chestnut (no, chinquapin), I hear a man’s voice across the street behind me: M’AM. M’AM. M’AM!!!

I think: am I about to be tackled? I think: does he think I’m a cat burglar? Does he he have a gun? I turn around, take my headphones off slowly.

M’AM.

It’s an older guy standing in his front door with a glass of wine.

SORRY TO STARTLE
YOU, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING. LOOK TO THE HORIZON THERE. IN A MOMENT YOU WILL SEE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION.

“Oh wow!” I say. And right on cue, it comes into view, a slow firefly.

We stare up in silence, mouths open, 20 feet apart.

THEY’RE JUST GOING ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS UP THERE, he says. We are silent some more.

“Do you...do this often?” I say.

YES, I HAVE AN APP, he says.

I hold up my phone and the leaf I’ve low key just ripped off the tree I’m standing under. “I also have an app,” I say. “For trees.”

Two weirdos nod at each other solemnly.

I took a video of the ISS moving through the sky, but I can’t upload it till I get home. Imagine a tiny bright spark passing by, unhurried, while an old man and not-young woman stare up in their frozen places from an empty street. Your people are out there, even in the dark.

NOT TO RUIN THE FUNGIBLE, GESTURAL QUALITIES OF METAPHOR HERE WITH TWO POSTSCRIPTS OR ANYTHING, BUT:

1. the story of the American chestnut is one of microscopic hope in the face of mind-boggling grief. Its salvation and our own are tenderly intertwined.

Please read THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers to understand why. Please also donate to @chestnut1904 if you're so moved.

2. I use @PictureThisAI and iNaturalist. No idea what Mr. 2-neighborhoods-over used for the ISS. And the leaf I'm holding is a CHINQUAPIN OAK. Already made ID!