When the chainsaw begins, 
I sit at our small round kitchen table 
over a bowl of oatmeal, alone 
with only the whir of fridge, view 
of backyard grass, bushes, pine straw. 
At the buzzing, I know they’ve come 
for the Bradford pear tree next door. 
Invasive species, spreads in forests, 
these trees aren’t helping anything. 
But, this tree is glorious today, 
its death day. White flowering branches 
drape over the sidewalk, cascade 
over the street. The neighbor told me 
twice, that our tree, the one eight feet away 
from this one to be taken out, will be 
happier. Trees who grew up together, 
who must have known each other 
for a couple of decades, at least. 

Two days ago, I pat the tree to be downed, 
thanked it, and yesterday too, but today, 
I walked right by it without saying 
anything at all, thinking about how 
I woke up crying about all that the dark  
does and does not hold. I didn’t pat the tree 
this third day, the very day the saw sound began 
and I wished I had. I knew the sound 
was coming and I wonder if the tree 
knew its fate as we sometimes know things. 

In the height of its flower, each branch falls 
with an odd grace, like the most beautiful dance, 
by a dancer whose arms are being cut off 
one after another until petals litter the asphalt 
as if it were a wedding not a funeral. 
A buzzing. A buzz. Until the tree 
becomes wood stacked just feet 
from its cut trunk. Branches full of light, gone, 
as if they had never been there, as if their glory 
had been a prayer taken with the breeze.