Belated Apology to a Tree I Cut Down
I’m sorry. You did nothing to me while
I did the worst thing anyone could do
To you – cut you down. And it’s no excuse
To say that someone told me to, or that,
If I lasted through the five months of that
Americorps job I’d taken because
I didn’t know what else to do, seven
Thousand dollars – not even a sixth of
What I owed - in loans would be forgiven.
Nor am I asking you to forgive me.
How could you? You’re gone. I made sure of that.
I should tell them where you lived, shouldn’t I?
In Alaska, outside Fairbanks, somewhere
I could never find after all these years,
Even if I were told gold was buried
There. How many years had you been standing
There? Longer, I’m sure, than I’d been alive,
Though you weren’t a terribly old tree,
Which somehow makes it worse, like someone who’s
Died young. You must have heard us coming
From far off, the snarling of the chainsaws
We’d been trained to be just good enough with
Not to hurt ourselves, like drafted soldiers
Swinging their guns in such a way they make
Their officers flinch. I think we must have
Known we weren’t making a hiking trail
(We'd learn later it was for ATVs).
It was too wide, too remote. You stood dead
In the center of the swath marked for cutting,
The orange survey flags pardoning the trees
They were tied to the branches of, like marks
On the doors of houses the massacre
Will pass over. You had to watch us cut
Down your brethren before we came to put
You out of your misery, giving the saw
Little spurts of gas so it wouldn’t die
Before you did, the loose chain rattling,
The teeth dull from a full day of cutting.
Later, by firelight, I’d file them
With a tool set to get the angle right.
It was me and Mitch, a kid from somewhere
In the northeast. Who knows where he is now.
I wonder if he ever thinks of you.
We didn’t get along, Mitch and I.
I remember once arguing with him
About whether we should have dropped the bomb
On Hiroshima, his argument being
That more people would have died had the war
Gone on, mine being women carrying
Their own flesh in their arms and the shadows
Of children burned onto classroom walls.
But we agreed about cutting trees down.
Competitive with each other, we were
Always trying to work harder longer.
Had either of us quit, the other
Would have too, but neither of us would have
Before the other did, so we didn’t.
Our not getting along was bad for you,
A prisoner who recognizes that
The enmity between two guards spells death.
It fell to me to fell you, which is why
I’m apologizing. I don’t know if
Trees feel pain, but either they don’t or
They do. I cut a V into your pink-
Blue belly, thinking only about how
I wanted to drop you better than Mitch had
Dropped the last one. High above me, you were still
Alive, drinking in the Alaskan sun,
Your god, who disappeared for half the year
But made up for it by hardly setting
In summer. It was summer. Your limbs
Spread out in exultation. Had I left
You like that, you might have survived until
The first strong wind took pity on you and
Finished what I'd started. Instead, I went
Around to your other side, calmly
Calculating like torturers do,
And with the saw at my own belly cut
Through the rings you had put on, one by one,
Year after year on the anniversary
Of the earth’s circling of the sun,
Your dusty white flesh spewing in a plume
Onto my chaps and into my boots,
The chaps stuffed with fiberglass, the boots
Tipped with steel to protect me from myself.
I looked at Mitch, who was looking up at you.
You were beginning to lean, and when
You started to go, I withdrew the saw
With its jaw of barracuda teeth
And stepped back as if I had nothing
To do with what was happening. And surely
That kid just out of college, doing blue
Collar work in the Alaskan wild,
Can’t be held responsible for killing
A tree, can he? No, which is why it falls
To the man I've grown up to be
To hold himself responsible.
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Aww really touchy nice one