Sugar Maple | Roy Pullam
The noble limbs
Had been shelter
For birds and squirrels
The storm claiming
The tree
Helpless in a heap
Pinned to the ground
The leaves waving
A flag of surrender
He worked the pile
The chainsaw
With its aggressive growl
Chewing the wood
One large branch
Then the other
Falling the short distance
To the ground
In a plop
Snatched from its resting place
And put on the flat bed
Of the trailer
Green and brown together
Heading for the decaying mass
The community storm damage
How noble it stood
For fifty years
Shading my kitchen window
In the cold
And the heat
A constant
My leafy place
My quiet place
Where I spent
Many an evenings
Reading a book
Never thinking of the irony
That the fibers
Of the sugar maples
Often made the tracts
My eyes followed
While this one
Was my umbrella
From the evening sun
A stump now
The saw quiet
The last load gone
With just the sadness
For a lost friend