Tree Song
Once upon a time...
There was an old tree with black bark that sat in the middle of our front yard. When I was younger, I'd fall asleep on the couch in our living room beneath the blue light of the television with nothing but the oily squeak of wind-strained branches. How old it was, when it was first planted, and what type of tree, I never knew, but it was suitable for climbing. I knew this, especially when I would break sleep at 2 AM staring into the moonlit blinking eyes of a possum bumbling along a sparsely-leafed branch.
Summertime, while always hot, was cool underneath the shock of pale green leaves. My younger brother could be seen rolling around in the mossy dirt underneath with our aged beagle, Rufus. We buried Rufus under that same tree after one of the neighborhood ne'erdowells slipped some strychnine in his water bowl.
I used to tell some of my other friends that there once was a clubhouse perched in the dark branches, tucked behind dense foliage. There was a ladder leading upwards that could only be accessed by tugging on one of the lean, dangling twigs. It was completely furnished with sleeping bags and old posters made from found wallpaper and wrapping paper scraps. I would tell them this as they narrowed their eyes towards the top of the tree, only to be dismayed when I told them we had to tear it down a few years after it was first built when it became infested with raccoons.
It was a voluminous presence on the pathway to the front door. You would look outside when company arrived and see them visibly shift to the tree-less half of the cobblestone walk when approaching. It wasn't imposing in its height, but in its girth. Three men, six feet tall each, couldn't clasp hands and surround the trunk without hyper-extending their shoulders. Several passersby would tell us to uproot the thing for fear that it would rip into our foundation or, god forbid, upend the concrete sidewalk underneath their feet, but we knew better. Many years I'd lived at the same house, but I still noticed how fewer and fewer people would cross directly in front of our house, instead deciding to cross the once, away from our house, and twice, towards our house, while gangling through the neighborhood.
In my adolescent years, I would drag the vinyl lawn chair onto our birch porch and sit with my homework assignments under the spring shade. Occasionally, I'd glance towards the tree of my youth and remember how many times I'd skinned my knees against it while climbing. Even then, I would remember the knotty smoothness of its weathered limbs, some with peculiar bites encircling some of my more sturdy perches. As I sat, I could visualize it as I had in my youth, like a twisted rubber hose knotting off a wound.
Yes, the Virginia house had lots of history, and I could feel it hurtling earthward with each leaf of the tree. Glaring from the pit of its bushy pale top, it never failed to send a shrill pitch of shudders down my spine in a stiff wind.
After we cut it down last year, the city gardeners told me chilling stories of how each thunderous draw of the chainsaw sounded like the shrieking wail of an old woman. They started on a Monday and didn't finish cutting it all down until three Thursdays afterward. Each week bringing in at least two new faces where three old ones had left. It was only after they dragged the trunk from the ground that they noticed its sap, a deep crimson pool in the soil, had stained their hands, clothes, and equipment permanently.
We saved some of the trunk for sentimental reasons. Some of it, my grandfather used to make knick-knacks or picture frames for friends of his, but the lion's share he used to make a rocking chair for my own home and a crib for my brother's daughter. To this day, she hasn't slept a full night since she's been born. As for me, I can't sit in that rocking chair without fitful afternoon dreams of a white-haired woman with piercing eyes pronouncing my name as if it were read from a bill of sale.
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