She didn’t look like much —
a heap of branches, gnarled and worn;
Her wood was split and rotten
from the winters and the storm.
While carting off the broken wood
a sadness came to me:
It’s not a pile of junk.
This once was Grandma’s apple tree.
How many times she warmed our house
with smells of baking pie,
And cinnamon and apple sauce,
and holidays gone by.
Why did we have to cut her down?
We’d given little thought;
Her fruit was less abundant now,
and pies were mostly bought.
The time it took to slice her
with a chainsaw wasn’t long,
But years thereafter, still I felt
that something there was wrong.
I wondered what a lesson
from this episode might give,
And if it’s only trees
that have to earn the right to live.
Could it be so that we’ll regret
in coming days not far,
We value things for what they do
and not for what they are?
Jim Sudmeier
Franconia, NH
August 22, 1995