Shift.
SITTING AT MY KITCHEN TABLE on this damp morning I watch my landscape evolve in stop-motion. A crew of tree specialists arrived after breakfast to remove some trees from the garden. One of the trees, an old and dusty yew, has been slowly poisoned by a gas leak after utility work in the street some years ago. Its brittle limbs and desiccated body have already been swiftly disposed of, leaving the first of many new spaces that will greet me when I look out of the window. A feisty but tired mimosa tree that struggled last summer to offer a few feathery pink fronds has also been felled and in its place lies a pile of surprisingly fresh, blonde logs and a gleaming, oozing stump. The mimosa was planted twenty-five years ago and withstood a hurricane and many New England storms. Some years ago its two major limbs began to part ways and neither was destined to survive the split. At the end of last year a thunderstorm of biblical intensity signaled its demise; the next morning its bark began to peel in long scrolls faster than I could gather it. I casually tossed the detritus in the corner of the garden where dead branches go to rest.
A graceful weeping silver pear tree failed to survive the weight of winter’s last snowfall. It crumpled to the ground and stayed there, its lifeless branches spreading and pooling into the slush. Down with it came an unnamed tree that knew only how to grow taller each year. It barely bore leaves, let alone blossoms, though who knows where it might have ended up as it grew in height along with the sycamore maple and the river birch that now tower over the garden. This tree was never afforded a proper name. The former owners of our house referred to it as the Junk Tree. My husband humorously perpetuated that moniker but it never sat well with me. To my mind, the tree—plain though it was—was part mystery and part miracle, grown from random, passing seed, unplanned by humans yet with its own inalienable rights. But wherever it came from, and why, it’s gone now, and next to where it stood is a small viburnum that marvelously resisted the weight of the larger trees that fell on it. Now that the heavy deadwood has gone the viburnum has sprung up to the light and will green again, come spring.
For two deep winter weeks, after the snowfall and before today's felling, these casualties gave of themselves and gave to a cause greater than I could ever have invented. I witnessed more birds, more species of winged and web-footed creatures, more red robins and cardinals gathering in the undead brush than I have seen in the quarter century that this house and this garden have been my terrain. I brought out my binoculars and my Sibley's guide and spent every morning, for two blessed weeks, at the window. I know that many things suffered and failed to thrive during this period but I’m reassured that mice were born, sparrows plumped, and buds were nourished as I looked on. I want to believe that the sacrifice of process met the balance of its product.
When the major felling is done, strong men in orange hard hats and earplugs clamber like monkeys through the trees. They climb higher than my sons ever climbed when they were children—my two tender little boys and their friends, rigging daring swings and secret tree houses in the bosom of the young sycamore maple. Today these men in hard hats strike me as unsung athletes, stretching their arms and legs long and wide in the giant tree to test its limbs for safe scaffolding, while their power saws make quick work of damaged branches.
—
The sky is dark under a shifting raincloud. The thunderous chipper rattles the kitchen windows as it gobbles huge chunks of timber and spews out the dust of what was once my morning view. The revving of chain saws and the grinding of the chipper make me anxious. This is how I imagine the apocalypse might play out. I decide to take the dog out for a walk since her sanctuary is off limits for the morning, and I need time out from my vigil.
—
I chat with the crew as they huddle around the stump of the mimosa for their morning coffee break. I guess this is my lesson in embracing change, I say wrily to no one in particular. They acknowledge my comment with a complicit but kind laugh, and they point out to me the beauty and tenacity of the splendid and healthy trees that remain. I like these men. They cut decisively and prune judiciously. Their respect for my landscape and for their work is tangible and I am grateful. They choose to save healthy limbs and nesting birds. After they leave I’ll walk through the garden and reacquaint myself with it. I’ll reach down to touch and sniff the raw stumps of the trees. I’ll imagine myself collecting branches, twigs, and leaves as mementos of this moment in the garden's evolution, but eventually I’ll forget where they came from, and they’ll lose their unique shades of green and brown and even their pungent scent, and I’ll toss them in the corner with the other deadwood, and watch instead for the greening of spring, and wait for what arises.
