He showed up one day in a
bright red shirt, as bright as
a cardinal. I spotted him from
afar, perched high in the
largest tree: a tiny, foreign speck
almost hidden in the huge branch–web.
Hanging by thick neon ropes,
a chainsaw dangling from his
belt, he started in at the peak.
I watched him shimmy out onto
each bending branch, cutting back
from the ends. I wondered if he climbed
trees as a child; what he could see from
way up there; if he felt afraid, thrilled.
Little by little, he inched down from the
outermost branches at the top:
methodically sawing, swinging, swaying
in the wild gusts. At first I thought
he was just pruning; but he didn’t stop.
Out, in, down; out, in, down—
he maneuvered limbs and tools, eating
away at the tree, descending its mast
til nothing was left to grasp but the trunk
he was razing: a shrinking pole
studded with dark
gaping holes—eyes where
branches used to be.
It took him all day; I couldn’t look away.
I wondered if he woke that morning thinking
Today I will conquer that tree.
Alone, he hovered, aloft a hundred feet,
gripping that trunk with ropes and clips and cleats,
while the other men huddled below in hardhats,
looking up, waiting for each resounding fall—
their chainsaw chorus cutting into the chunks.
The noise was incessant: buzzing, droning, cracking—
limbs thundering
to the forest floor
with a shudder and sigh.
They worked that tree
down to a stump,
their shouts as tiny as insects.
I wondered if the branches
knew they would be cut. Still,
at each step, they held the climber up.
How long does it take
to cut a man down? Just a split
second—with scarcely a sound.
lunachik 