The Tree Scar

Walking home thru a park, an Eastern park. Trees with terra cotta foliage, with squash colored leaves, rucksack leaves, rust , sun hued fallings. And, of the sun: it's weaker now, as if a wall of gauze was erected between earth and it. It comes slantwise now. Everything seems to slant. Squirrels are in impossible poses, upside down on sides of trees, following you with their black eyes, jerking from one spot to another, as if reared on cocaine infused milk. The old people, backs bent to pull the detritus on the ground into large piles, and as the rake and shovel, more leaves fall, one tangerine colored leaf fell right onto an old mans pate.It sat there and he did nothing. Eventually, it fell of it's own accord. Me? I'd leave them. Natures way of saying, "Makeover". Everything seems fragile. Leaves would actually twirl at the end of a branch and fall. Limbs lay on the ground in front of a tree with a strange scar that ran the length of it. Not even a scare really, just a hands width strip of bark , gone. Why? Everywhere around the tree, I saw no bark, and the tree just stood there silent, it's cambium cold and pea-green. I placed my hand on it. Cold. No sign of violence. Just a strip of bark disappeared. Maybe the squirrels are that hungry.