Sickly view reveals with a start:
Tall friends gone now—I played a part.
Felled one by one, bodies askew lay
Awaiting severance, to be hauled away

And divided by the foot for timber and board
To make a home for a strange new hoard
Who will never know (will lose no slumber)
How stately these trees before being lumber.
 
With Joyce Kilmer they will not agree
That things aren’t lovelier than a tree,
Celebrate their new home with gift shower,
Dumb to trees that over mine did tower.

But I, with vivid memory still alive
See their dim shadows arrive
To save energy and shade the sun,
And cool the yard for play and fun.

They were mighty, each a gorgeous hulk,
Gave joy just being their shape and bulk,
Bedding for squirrel and shelter for bird,
Sweeter bird songs I’ve never heard.
  
They grabbed the wind and held at bay
A mighty storm that came our way,
And turbulently bent to, then bent fro,
Were still standing when the wind let go.

That I pondered, and thought it wise,
Gave traitorous order for their demise,
Killed the friends I had come to know
Fearing new winds’d lay them low.

The trees in my home are just wood—
Probably were tall, I’m sure quite good,
But to know them as trees I did not—
They didn’t live on my own house lot.

Wood in my home that I’ve come to love,
Should stay below and remain above,
And not be scattered and twisted free
Of blueprint order by a falling tree.
  
But sickly view still stabs like a dart,
Tall friends gone now, and I played a part.
Felled one by one, bodies askew lay
Awaiting severance, to be hauled away.