The Tree Guy

He doesn’t do the work himself,
he explains on the phone—
it’s just become too much.

So, he comes out for a flat fee of $150
to assess the arboreal situation
and advise on future action

or inaction. This big one has some
dead limbs that could use pruning,
that one is underwatered

and would do best with less competition—
consider clearing out this bed
of vines and mulching it over.

How worried should we be
about the big one falling?
About our house, our neighbors’?

And he tells us something it seems
we should all have learned long ago—
that trees die from the inside out,

the inner trunk of ours likely long
past its prime, but the outer rings
and bark still slurping up survival,

growing the glorious greens
that turn an improbable gold
in the sun’s generous glow.

The mosaic of leaves above
flashes the faces of the fallen—
those who left after forty, fifty,

even ninety-five years of verticality,
flesh uprooted with more or less warning,
leaving their big absence in the sky…

The long-sleeved, khakied man,
who once swung from the high
branches himself but now keeps

his feet planted in the earth—
the trees still surprise him
with how long they can stand

against the wind and rain,
the drought and drudgery
of a planet peeled of its plenty.

There are trees still standing
that I thought would
drop decades ago—

layers of heartwood lingering
so much longer than
our own lifespans can absorb.