Late afternoon, the crows still at gossip
in the pock-trunked beech uphill.
The tree, having nurtured bears and birds
for decades, will have to go.
My oldest friend is also failing:
addledness and illness.
He was always tough as proverbial nails.
Cliché? I hardly care.
I’ll say it: the whole thing breaks my heart.
I’m not hardy enough
to carry a saw out there and use it.
That that should embarrass me now is absurd.
No matter. It feels wrong.
Suddenly everything seems wrong,
People live and die.
How should that surprise anyone?
What else to expect at my age?
I could have felled that beech just right.
I’d have slipped on boots, steel-toed,
a hardhat, a set of Kevlar chaps.
I’d have checked that the house would be clear.
I’d have trimmed off limbs and put them aside
for a bonfire come the snow.
The saw would have whined. And then a thud.
That thud that shakes the earth.