The Tree Needs to Go: A Lesson in What Was---and What Could Be

 

The tree needs to go.
Nostalgia and a hope of new growth—
And a desire for a sliver of shade in the heat of summer—
Kept me from cutting the whole thing down in 2022.

It’s ugly.
The only branches left are sucker branches that do not belong.
The majority of the branches died in Sno-pocalypse 2022.
Its limbs remaining are short, mismatched,
It will mark no new life in a year—or maybe two.

But the trunk stands strong.
The trunk—the shelter it once represented for me and my boys—
Is now the shelter for two families of red-streaked ladder-backed woodpeckers
Who marked their arrival with incessant knocking on the rough wood bark,
As if they were begging the trunk for entrance.

With much effort, they cut piece after piece of wood away to make the perfect home
Marked by a perfect circled entrance.
The mother and father sit guard,
Early morning into the dark,
Resilient, determined, and resolute,
Watching over their home,
Protecting their young,
Keeping out predators,
Feeding,
Providing a home to the best of their abilities.

Just as this mother once did,
Watching over her home,
Protecting her young,
Keeping out predators,
Feeding,
Providing a home to the best of her abilities.

Where I saw just a month ago the symbol of the loss of what was,
They see beauty and purpose and hope in what could be.

Who knows what else could be?

The tree will stand.

The tree will not go.