The way the lightning-split
willow was tugged,
wandy and half still alive,
it refused to uncrook.
So, nearly into the lake,
the big man ran his bull-
dozer at it till 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.
First published in The Yale Review, Vol. 98. No. 1, January, pp. 39-42. 2010. Reprinted in Certain Uncollected Poems, Ostrakon Press, 2012.