Far Away In Time, the Senses Return to Me as I Identify with That Tree

The way the lightning-split

      willow was tugged,

wandy and half still alive,

      refused to uncrook.

So, nearly into the lake,

      the big man ran his bull-

dozer at it until the machine

      climbed the trunk.

A tree unleashing animal noise,

      a three-hour oration

before stench from cut roots

      blew it out.

Wet pliable young wood

      balked at the daylight.

Unnerved intuition of those

      who would have perched there.

And witnesses hanging back

      while the man,

linking chain around

      the mammoth fragment

hastened to finish --

      before dark. And before dark,

he dragged off his weeper

      handcuffed.