Advantage

It said so on the side of the truck,  A D V A N T A G E.

What a stupid name for a woodcutters truck.

Oh sure there would be more sun. Who does not love sun? 

At 7am. they came. Three strong men, wielding their gas powered saws. Cutting into the once beautiful 80 year old Pin Oak that shaded the sidewalk corner, and my home.

I always felt it was a nuisance tree. It was not my tree and I cursed it every year for the mess it left behind. I also struggled with the idea of having to cut into her roots that spanned countless generations, some 5 years before.

In her search to cling to life she sought nourishment in my front lawn. I swore at her then too but she was already past her prime. She had lost the uppermost parts of her limbs, ravaged by winter winds and old age. 

 Inasmuch as I disliked her twice a year shedding and her encroaching properties, I felt a loss. 

No longer would she shade me from the harsh summer sun or give shelter to the squirrels that delighted in her hollowed branches. I would no longer see or hear the melodies of the songbirds that sang in her arms.

Sixty feet of canopy now reduced to only a stump.

I gaze out my kitchen window thinking she would never again see Spring. She was cut down in the dead of Winter. Her Autumn, felled by the hands of three men. 

Copyright Jackie Summers

3-5-12