Decisions

Decisions

I live in a city

among many neighbors.

A few of them are trees.

When I notice

the lift vehicle parked

around the corner,

I anticipate

the shrill of chainsaws

the next day.

Annual maintainance,

no big deal,

just like a little haircut,

we’ll make it nice and neat.

Fantasies of nature made safe,

they should grow as we please,

look like a site of mass amputations.

The roadside lined

with arboreal limbs.

I look at the pile of branches,

stacked from large to small,

cherry, oak, poplar, willow,

I see many years of work

that created matter.

We’ll grind them to mulch tomorrow.

A few weeks later

the regular summer storm

rips off many branches,

both large and small,

and line the understory with them.

When I look at the forking

of each tree branch,

growth prescribed yet always different,

I think of decisions

steered by circumstances.

When I look at the branches

on the ground

after the summer storm

I think of decisions

that do not matter anymore.