Don't tell the Lorax

One evening back in late October I paused by these trees (palm, I believe) next to this streetlight and experimented with shooting straight up along the pole of the light. You can judge the result for yourself:
I had passed this spot many times and thought the illumination of the streetlight on the trees to be interesting (or at least potentially so) for a photographic subject, but on those occasions I'd kept going, procrastinating because I figured I could take the shots later. But then on this October evening, as you can see, I got over the procrastination. (Whether I should have is another story.)

So?

A week later I passed the same location and... well, have a look at the picture below, taken looking up the post of the same streetlight.


Yes, the trees are gone. The photo has not been altered in any way.

I should note that this spot is next to a construction site, but the construction had been going on for months. When I took the first picture I had no idea the trees were scheduled to be cut down. Presumably mine was the last picture ever taken of those trees.

This seems to be a rather obvious example of why it's important to not put off until tomorrow what you can do (or photograph) today, but given that after every week where I didn't take their picture the trees were still there, I cannot help but wonder if they'd still be around if only I'd procrastinated longer.

If the universe was just keeping them around until I got around to acting on my idea of taking this picture, I would have gladly kept not doing it to allow them to survive indefinitely. (It's not like the shot turned out well enough to justify tree-killing.) I'd much rather have trees than pictures of trees.

Sometimes it's tricky not to believe in coincidence. I'm just sayin'.