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 before they were lumber.

With Joyce Kilmer they will not agree

That things aren’t lovelier than a tree,

Celebrate home with gifts from a shower,

Think not of felled trees once 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, with shape and bulk,

Bedding for squirrel and shelter for bird,

Sweeter songs you’ve never heard.

But they grabbed the winds 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 would lay them low.

The trees in my home are just wood—

Probably were tall, I’m sure quite good,

But to know them as friends 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,

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.