What Are Years

Robert McDonald

This is not the tree cutter’s very first

tree, limb by limb by branch, the cutting just

a workday task, until only the trunk is left,

looking like a cemetery

headstone

for a tree.

 

In a network of ropes, in the cacophony of chainsaw

duets, at the end of a year that anyone

could claim has seen enough

destruction,

the tree’s

brought down,

 

I can feel the fall of the largest

lengths of trunk in the soles of my feet.

The woodpecker, I’ve seen it for years, hopping

and hammering,

that patented

woodpecker

 

move; it will need to find a new home, because something

older than me has been hewn,

sectioned,

trucked away

before noon.

I didn’t want this open span

 

of sky. I didn’t ask to be standing in my living

room, smelling fresh

sawdust

even through

the glass. I didn’t ask

for this abundance: winter

 

light, a wealth

of spilled honey, this

new glow

across the old

wooden

floor.