Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

A Proud Tree is Cut Down…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 4:30 am on Friday, October 30, 2020

Robert M. Katzman © October 30, 2020

A proud tree cut down

Leaves, branches all asunder

Trunk chopped and scattered

Like so much plunder

***
The tree softly cries

While its birds fly in search

Their nest blown away

Nowhere for them to perch

***

A squirrel skitters over

Seeking home from the wind

Astonished to learn

Nothing, where something has been

***
Trunk chunks lie on the ground

Immersed in its leaves

The brilliant colors of fall

Witness as it grieves

***
Then in the silence

An old human walks by

Sees more than the loss

Of the pieces where they lie

***
Thinks what can be

More than what has been

Sees beauty dismembered

Can be beauty again

***
Comes back with a truck

Gatherers what he can still lift

Age limiting the harvest

Of his vision, his gift

***
Pieces once whole

Lay in jumbled disarray 

The truck rumbles on

Barked passengers in dismay

***
The old human unloads

His new acquisitions

Arranges them just so

In particular positions

***
They now adorn a brick fireplace

Guardians of random wood

Containing their drifting

From wind doing what it could

***
Two cut parts on each side

In anticipation they trembled

But the final result

A tree more or less reassembled

***
So the squirrels skitter by

Birds land and depart

What once a sad loss

Has now become art

***

3 Comments »

Comment by Jim Payne

October 30, 2020 @ 5:24 am

Bob,
Bravo, wonderful, a Poem for the ages that restores rhythm and rhyme. I can see not just the tree that is beautiful, human, but your transforming hand in its new life as art. You are a poet.

Comment by brad dechter

October 30, 2020 @ 7:44 am

You wrote it like you lived it Bob. Nice visuals, tied together well. A good story!
I have to tell you 70 ain’t that old! I know it’s not the years but the mileage, but if you did “live” this, and as a participant, not as a witness, you aren’t old and stop thinking about yourself like that!
If you were just the witness- perhaps the person who cut down and killed that beautiful tree- then forget the above about being old! You’re still cutting down trees man!
OK- no more rambling. Good story.

Comment by Bill Skeens

October 30, 2020 @ 12:43 pm

Great Bob Thanks for sharing. Be well. Bill Skeens

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