from: Roots and Paths
Roots and Paths
Jonquils bloom in my manicured,
mulched yard. Nearby, the woods
still exhale winter,
bare and brown in the morning sun,
nothing green but moss,
leftover sprigs of grass,
the living and the dead
still one.
Leafless vines
surround us. Some hold
half-fallen trees in a tangled
aerial embrace,
others wait like snares
overhead.
Everywhere,
scattered,
splattered,
peeled,
broken
trees cause us to veer
from the familiar track.
An upturned trunk’s
vestigial roots spread
like a large pelvic bone.
Another’s are hind feet
ready to spring toward us.
A chain-sawed
hollow log is a cannon’s
bore aimed our way.
When I look down the hill, I see
the path where I will be,
heading in the opposite
direction,
on a different plane.
I look up,
see a hint of where I have been.
Both are familiar and foreign.
A fallen tree, caught
in the fork of another,
becomes my rudder.
from: Taking Stock
Death of the Maple
Kevin put one hand on bare wood,
the other on discolored bark.
It’s dying a slow death.
Nothing is moving up or down:
food,
water,
nothing.
Like terminal arterial sclerosis.
He pointed at a big girdling root
that has driven itself
through the tree’s heart,
sealing its fate.
We looked up at leaves
thinning like a chemo patient’s hair.
Kevin tore off a big piece
of red-and-yellow-striped plastic ribbon,
tied it around the trunkˇX
a notice of extinction,
euthanasia.
A small branch fell by his feet.
Today, two men with ropes and chainsaws
dismember the tree from its crown to the ground.
Their chipper’s diesel whine
drowns out any final moans
as it grinds everything
from twigs to huge hunks,
spews a stream of shredded bones.
The men rake, sweep, leave only
wet sawdust, skeletal roots,
a ringed vestige of the stump
as flat grave marker,
morning sun where there used to be shade,
a small scrap of striped ribbon. |
