The Family Tree

We bought the house

next to the one my

great-grandfather built.

Property lines have been created

since the farm was sub-divided, so

in my backyard stands the ninety-year-old

white pine he planted when

his children were as small as

mine are now.

My sons cannot reach the lowest branch.

I wonder if they can see the highest?

An ice storm glazed the tree and

all its needles,

Weight strained against its strength and

then cracked a limb,

broke it off at the trunk, and

down it crashed across the alley.

My sons dance around the fallen

arm of the tree as

Great-Grandfather’s children may have

danced around the sapling one May.

It smelled like life, green and piney,

but isn’t it death?

Bleeding from its wounds?

Saw in hand, I walked to the still

beautiful green thing and,

failing to move the whole,

hacked away at the parts until

I could drag the main limb

off the road.

My feet were soaked, my hands sticky

with the remembrance of a

man I never knew.