Elegy for a Maple Tree

The silence of a fallen tree is a thing of immense sadness.

That it had outgrown its place, or had risen inadvertently, without anyone’s noticing until it couldn’t be missed, hardly matters. Unless a tree disintegrates from within its own time and circumstances, a felled tree is as much a tragedy as a needlessly killed animal, the end of a trusted relationship.

For all of my years coming to the farm, the gate into the meadow was a piece of poetry.   A transition from a well-used road to a peaceful preserve, where deer and turkeys and raptors made their home.
The white wagon wheel rested up against the trunk of that spectacular maple, often photographed by passersby.  It offered one of those perfect vignettes that are less and less in evidence these days.  It spoke of order and care and a love of beauty, a home that those who dwelled there cared enough to spend time making lovely.

Now the wheel stands exposed, bereft.

In the process of eliminating two trees that were getting in the way of the haying and the views, this third was taken too.

It was a careless decision, like all such decisions, made too quickly and full of the hubris that knows what’s best in a situation. The tree was not consulted.

I will not live to see its replacement grow into such perfect harmony with the meadow, its gate and its welcome.  Some perfect equipoise has been lost.  Perhaps somewhere in your life this has happened too, this season.  You live your days as best you can, holding orders that have served your own thresholds and fields well.  And then, one day, it is gone, taken away, in quiet executions over which you have no control.

Forgive us, dear maple, for we do not know what we do.

The silence is vast and echoing this morning.  The birds do not know where to land, any more than does my eye, or my heart.