Here's Looking At You Joe

Today's blip is my "wee thank you" to Blip's founder, Joe Tree.
It may be a very wee tree at the moment, and it's still my first year blipping, but everything has to start somewhere and I like to watch stuff grow.
The picture shows the remains of two English Plane Trees not far from my house. They had flourished here for around eighty years, providing a shady canopy in summer, a crunchy leaf carpet in winter, and support for the tyre-swing that was a magnet for all the local kids. Then someone poisoned them. It was painful for me watching them die. They struggled to survive, putting out new shoots even as the dead branches dropped. Eventually they were removed for safety reasons. I had to go out the day they came down, the sound of the chainsaws just hurt.
Around a month ago I discovered some seedlings in a mulch filled gutter.
For some reason the seedlings only appear every few years. These ones followed me home. They have been growing nicely in some pots in my back yard. I took one out for a walk today. Doggo helped.
Evergreen by David Malouf is the poem in extras.

Becoming