A tree ended its life on my property yesterday.
A magnificent, soaring Water Oak --- it looked in prime health. It was 70 years old – three score and ten. Home, shelter, and playground to generations of birds and squirrels. Pileated wood peckers raised their young in an old hole high up near a fork in the tree. Nuthatches climbed, sometimes upside-down along the bark, foraging for insects. Bluebirds and hummingbirds swooped up to rest on its generous limbs. Squirrels raced round and round the wide trunk in pursuit of a tail. My friend masked the road and the house opposite, hid the ugly black strings of utility wires. It shaded a garden of azalea, a bank of blue hydrangeas and our spacious screen porch. On summer afternoons I would lie private and shaded on the couch in the screen porch and watch birds fly back and forth to the feeder.
I can barely stand the sound of the electric saws today. The whine and buzz saddens and irritates me through the closed windows, over the music I play in futile defense. If I were outside, I would smell the raw severed flesh of the tree, feel the empty space stretching above like an ache.
I came home at midday yesterday. It was a hot, calm day. No wind, no rain. Perfectly still. Lying on the lawn, its furthest leafy branches scrunched up against the screens of the porch was a third of this giant tree. Huge limbs had torn off 20 feet above the ground and crashed down while, unaware, I was shopping for groceries.
The garden seemed to hold its breath. I walked around the standing trunk in the silent heat. I looked up at the remaining branches, huge and leafy, stretching out over the lawn. It was so lopsided now, this old giant. I turned towards the house thinking that I would ask the tree service to prune the remaining branches to reduce the one -sided strain on the trunk.
As I walked out of the shade of the tree I heard the crack, harsh and sharp. And then a monstrous tearing and ripping.
I ran. I sprinted away. I didn’t turn til I reached the side of the house. Behind me the sound was long and loud and fearsome. A scream of demise. Neighbors heard it over closed windows and air conditioning on a ninety degree day. I barely heard my own scream.
Almost the entire rest of the tree came tumbling down, crashing against the ground, reverberating. I turned to see the bounce of branch on earth, the shiver of leaves beyond my reach.
A magnificent, soaring Water Oak --- it looked in prime health. It was 70 years old – three score and ten. Home, shelter, and playground to generations of birds and squirrels. Pileated wood peckers raised their young in an old hole high up near a fork in the tree. Nuthatches climbed, sometimes upside-down along the bark, foraging for insects. Bluebirds and hummingbirds swooped up to rest on its generous limbs. Squirrels raced round and round the wide trunk in pursuit of a tail. My friend masked the road and the house opposite, hid the ugly black strings of utility wires. It shaded a garden of azalea, a bank of blue hydrangeas and our spacious screen porch. On summer afternoons I would lie private and shaded on the couch in the screen porch and watch birds fly back and forth to the feeder.
I can barely stand the sound of the electric saws today. The whine and buzz saddens and irritates me through the closed windows, over the music I play in futile defense. If I were outside, I would smell the raw severed flesh of the tree, feel the empty space stretching above like an ache.
I came home at midday yesterday. It was a hot, calm day. No wind, no rain. Perfectly still. Lying on the lawn, its furthest leafy branches scrunched up against the screens of the porch was a third of this giant tree. Huge limbs had torn off 20 feet above the ground and crashed down while, unaware, I was shopping for groceries.
The garden seemed to hold its breath. I walked around the standing trunk in the silent heat. I looked up at the remaining branches, huge and leafy, stretching out over the lawn. It was so lopsided now, this old giant. I turned towards the house thinking that I would ask the tree service to prune the remaining branches to reduce the one -sided strain on the trunk.
As I walked out of the shade of the tree I heard the crack, harsh and sharp. And then a monstrous tearing and ripping.
I ran. I sprinted away. I didn’t turn til I reached the side of the house. Behind me the sound was long and loud and fearsome. A scream of demise. Neighbors heard it over closed windows and air conditioning on a ninety degree day. I barely heard my own scream.
Almost the entire rest of the tree came tumbling down, crashing against the ground, reverberating. I turned to see the bounce of branch on earth, the shiver of leaves beyond my reach.
I could feel the matching crash of my heart against ribs, the shiver of a near miss. The reverberation and finality of loss.
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| Got your wires crossed? |
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| No longer my shady porch |
1 comment:
Beautifully written, your pain and the tree's are palpable. You chose the right order, effect first, then case. I've experienced a similar loss in our way-less-tree-rich neighborhood in Southern California, but at the dastardly had of a neighbor who had our shared big oak tree cut down, illegally, while we away because he didn't like trees!
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