Severance The act or process of severing Or the state of being severed. As when a cancerous growth Needs removing surgically, Or as when some pleasure Has stiffened into addiction. For instance, when you see Piles of brush spaced out Under an orchard, those are Branches that once reached For the sun and held the rain A moment before letting it drop. But they were taking strength Away from the fruit, So someone, paid hardly Anything surely, angled a saw in, Severing them from all that They’ve ever known, the tree itself, Which they always thought Themselves an integral part of, Not extraneous to it, But the thing the whole thing Is for, and this is why Where they were cut you’ll find A mark of astonishment — The shape an open mouth makes.