According to some, the tree out front, what’s left of it, should have
been cut down years ago.
I haven’t, because it was there, a big robust maple, high as the house,
when my folks bought the place in 1958.
I remember remembering, driving up the block, which house was ours
by the big tree out front.
Helping them move in, coming home on leave from the Corps,
dragging my sorry butt back to recover some sanity after Mimi
fell apart (and we came back east with the baby).
Even climbing a ladder, up high, to cut down a sagging limb.
My little son watching in awe from a distance.
The tree got old, like my parents did, like I’m doing –- it’s ok –
and started to weaken and split.
I had to take parts down before they fell on someone, or more likely
someone’s car parked under it.
Now all that’s left, since a couple years ago, when I went out to cut
it all down but chickened out, is about 15 feet of the main trunk and
a stumpy branch that sticks out sideways and still gets some leaves.
The big trunk angles a bit toward the porch and is completely
hollow and perfectly round.
Lower down it’s cracked and you can look inside. It’s twilight in
there and full of storybook creatures.
The whole presentation could best be described as an eye-sore,
or as my friend Steve said on a visit, “Gar, what’s that tree doing
in the front yard? It needs to come down!”
Or my daughter, “Gary, (she calls me since a little girl when her
Mom and I had “advanced ideas” about child raising),
“Gar, wouldn’t it be nice to sit on the porch or drive up and see
a big clean lawn with some flowers and shrubs?”
Today I’m seventy-five and decided to start the day sitting on
the porch with a coffee.
So I did and of course noticed the old remains with a few leaves
on its only branch. The leaves are starting to turn with the season
as if nothing had changed in a hundred years.
Recently I thought, okay, I’ll leave it be, Halloween is coming.
It makes the house seem kind of spooky. The kids like that.
“Oohh, there’s the haunted house with the old guy that sits on his
porch real late at night.”
The bark is starting to peel, the crack in the trunk is growing wider.
Next spring, early. It’ll be time.
A squirrel just showed up, ran up the trunk, out onto the odd branch,
scurried through the few remaining leaves, and back.
He stopped on the rim of the hollow trunk.
A breeze stirred the long fur on his long tail. Taking his time,
he brushed his face with both paws, like he was washing it
with cool October air.
Then he went on his way as if nothing had changed in a hundred years.