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Tree faller poem.


MattyF
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My land lady gave me this poem that one of her friends who recantly passed away wrote..Not really a fan of poetry but found it quite interesteing to see a poets view of us!

 

The tree feller

 

All at once there was a man in the tree.

I'd misseed his quick ascent to fix

the first pulley two houses high,thread the red lifeline.

i discovered him in the branches,broad belted like a warrior

dangling iron loops and clasps,coils of rope ,the thigh bands

that would bear him if he fell.

When he nonchanchalantly let go his chainsaw,

let it swing down on its long strap,

i felt the shock of its weight on my own body.

 

He monkeys up a limb in a sudden gusts

gripping the bark with spiked boots that leave scars,

wraps rope in intricate thick knots

then sighns to an earthbound mate to brace the pulley and back off.

Gently,precisley,he cuts two calculated notches,

and a roped branch swings miraculously round the trunk,

some how not crashing him,and lands

exactly where he planned in the minute garden.

he smiles.

 

A skilled man who loves his work is irrestistable.

I go upstairs window to see better.

Branch by leafy branch he works upwards

moving thoughtfully from hold to hold,feeling with hands and feet

(he wears no gloves like his friend below)

pitching rope gently,deftly,over the next target,

above all balancing.

He never leans to far or stretches out,

knows gravity is his foe. Could be a dancer.

The saw moans in his work

sprays sawdust on the wind like yellow smoke

and steadily reduces

that once broad,leaf thick,life rich,wind brush dome

to two grey fingers in the sky.

 

lashed like a hug to one of them he carefully

carves through the wood above him

pauses to test the air,the balance,his own stance

then gives a push and sends a heavy log

free falling'thonk'on to the echoing earth.

Length by length he drops the drums of wood,

while out of sight the harsh growl of the shredder

reduces the tree's centuries to chips.

at last only one barren trunk is left.

he abseils down and sheds his ropes and shackles,

leans into a last long cut that makes conclusion,

and lays the carcase out.

no walls ,no roses and no men were hurt.

 

now I must learn

a sudden wide sky,an absence overhead,

a new print of the sun's light on my land.

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