The Pine

They severed the broad arms of the pine

that just the day before held my spirit

close to the sky.

It wasn’t like a car wreck.

It was worse.

I flinched, I ducked, I dove for cover.

I fled inside and pulled the blinds.

Five of the seven

trees next door – 

who will house the birds?

They paved paradise because

You know, the sap, it drips

On our cars.

My father was a boy

when that tree was a seedling.

The first ground he trod was

among pines in Ukraine.

He felt the soil through shoes

his father made.

It was blind hope

that brought my grandfather

to Jamaica Plain where when

my father followed he felt 

no soil beneath those soles,

just pavement.

So he ran to the pond and

walked the paths I’ve run and

fell in love with the same water

we all drink today.

He tied the laces on his skates and

slipped out with blind faith onto

ice too fragile to support him

If his life had ended that day

cut down like the boughs of trees,

who would have held me on his shoulders?

I’d be a ghost – 

a nestless bird.