The Man Who Hated Trees

by Brett Rutherford

Stake through its heart, the sap-bled
tree grew ashen. Leafless, barkless,
squirrel-shunned, at last it was
          patently dead.
My Bonn Place neighbors wondered
     what manner of deviant
     could so impale
one of our dwindling row of sycamores,
our whispering rain-umbrellas,
our sparrow and robin high-rise
     low-income condominiums.

What manner of deviant
     to saw the branches last fall,
     then, angered at twig-break
     through this spring’s bark —
          the insouciant sucker growth
          attempting new sun-search —
to drive that railroad spike
into heartwood, cutting the xylem
and phloem course from roots
to yearning bud?
Did he snap those twigs off, too?
Does he harbor a death-wish
     for all of our loved trees?

One morning in summer the scream
     of chainsaw awakens us.
Two dog-ladies discover the amputee
     slices of trunk on the lawn,

stacked for the trash man,
     ham-steaks of tree-trunk.

We gather,
     hold hands,
          and count the rings.

Found in a notebook from c. 1975,
Weehawken, NJ.