how I’ve put off the making of memories
because today was full enough without being eventful
and tomorrow we will surely find ourselves just as pressed
in the service of the mundane and the money

They came today to take down the old Box Elder,
and, for a moment, I held a chain in my hands,
it was cold and still as nighttime and its weight was reassuring,
and I imagined myself in a solitary campaign to save,
staring down the barrel of a chainsaw with bold, unfearing eyes.
But I am resigned, at last inert, tolerant and even accepting of change.

I know enough already to expect it, even in these small corners;

and though we all must accommodate the necessary progress,
I will yet refuse to roll out a welcome to the demolitioners.

I will adapt to the absence. 
I will mourn the lack.

Already I regret not capturing the details of its eastern face in the last light,
sun piercing the great crown of leaves to lie in hard ranks along the tortured bark.
It was not hard to see the sunset and conjure a halo to frame the split trunk
the arms of which bowed low like those of a mother stooping to embrace a vanished child,

some alchemy of light sufficient to transfigure a tree into a childless Madonna.

07/30/2005

Author's Note: They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. The last outhouse in our town was demo-ed along with a centuries old box elder tree in order to provide parking for the Community Center.

Posted on 07/30/2005
Copyright © 2024 Lacy D Phillips