They took down the dead tree
Across the street today
Ancestral wood
An elder friend
And sentinel of the neighborhood
Where crow would light
And sight the world
From tip top of it’s height
Where hawk and squirrel
Could rest as friend
And whole black flocks
Would fill it’s lots
Where woodpecker knocked for hours
On end
Where swifts would circle round
It’s crown
Where robin reds would hunker down
My cat watched from the windowsill
And seemed distraught as I
They revved their saws
And trussed it up
They raised the bucket high
Irreverently they talked
And joked
In yellow suit and hat
Precaution when you take a
Mother tree like that
I stood in sadness
As I watched the home come down
And among the birds and squirrels
And I
No one spoke




Sara Mathews     March 2016