In My Back Yard

In my back yard, a tree is dying.

It’s dead, really, or nearly dead,

some little green adorning its top

amid the dry and brittle branches hanging low.

I know I should cut it down,

should have cut it down years ago,

that spring when few leaves came

for summer shade; no black buds had formed,

bursting open unseen, no shoots of leaves sprouting.

Its bark now is dull, its aspen-shine gone,

peeling, cracking, cracked already,

long black lines splintering and tearing.

The tree, too, is beginning to lean some, tipping,

off-kilter, more angled in these passing years, as if,

tired, to lay itself down, couched, a needful rest.

But it presents no hazard, tilted, no danger except to itself,

and perhaps, someday, it will fall over, not at my hands,

but in a strong wind, a summer storm, gusting;

its branches will scratch at the air and frantically

grasp at nothing, and falling, leave only a gaping hole

where once it stood, rooted, standing strong once,

but finally succumbing, giving in, falling as we all must.