by Anne Gruner
Green and leafy, a silver maple
leans over the side of the house.
It could fall on my bedroom
as I sleep. No matter—it would be
a fitting counterblow for all slain trees.
One day a sonic boom shakes the house.
I am fine, but the roof is not.
Silver's roots, too weak to hold onto life,
have given way. Its limbs invade the attic—
shingles slashed, gutters smashed.
I study Silver's neighbors—a copse of three, older,
taller, white oaks—verdant, fulsome, upright,
on the front of the house, and closer.
Silver's fallen image sticks in my mind's eye.
The roofer presses for a decision.
They say trees communicate and support each other,
sharing nutrients, water, and even warning—
using an underground fungal internet.
The three oaks comprise hundreds of years of life.
Together for decades, they are a family.
My temples throb with the dirge of the chain saw
as it ravages their majestic beauty,
top to bottom, piece by piece,
leaves fluttering downward,
handsome hardwood flung aside,
too many rings to count.
Perfectly healthy.
I turn away, sickened.
At last hewn to the bottoms of their trunks,
the venerable oak clan reveals its dark secret:
hollow channels of death ascending each,
unknown to me, but for the silver maple.
Together now in the empyrean,
the four stand over me once again.
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