Pruning - Aug 1 2025

 

Pruning

Aug 1 2025

I prune the trees.

Dead branches break off

living ones are severed.

The tangle thins,

light gets in.

I am reverential toward trees.

So used to let them have their way.

As if, unlike poetry

more is better;

more foliage, more shade, more life.

Now, the cuts still hurt,

but I understand

the greater good.

There is a difference

between paring and purging,

conscientious thinning

and razing to the ground.

I think of the clearcut; 

the tangle 

of scarified wood, 

deep furrows

of rain scoured earth,

and dead trees 

littering the ground

like pick-up sticks;

either rejected

or incidentally cut

and left to rot.

But also the green shoots breaking through,

new growth

that would eventually carpet the land.

Creative destruction

an economist would say;

the sort of man

who knows the price of everything

and the value of nothing. 

The trees are signalling distress,

working together

through chemistry 

against a common enemy

   . . . who, pruning shears in hand

is me.

Of course, trees are not sentient,

don’t retrospect

or nurse old grudges;

they're simply defending themselves

as nature intended.

I think of fresh-cut grass,

a smell I still love

despite knowing

it’s the smell of alarm.

Think of the needles 

an idle hand

strips from a low-lying branch

of balsam fir.

The scent of spice and earth

lingering on my skin.

Think of the pheromones 

of pine and spruce

that somehow brighten my mood

as I walk through the woods;

the boreal alchemy

of healthy trees.

And downwind of fire 

the acrid smoke and poisonous air.

The pall 

that turns the moon red,

and overhead

places an alien sun

in a hazy sky

that feels vaguely threatening. 

Perhaps a portent

of worse to come.

One of many trenchant witticisms borrowed from Oscar Wilde: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing from his play Lady Windermere’s Fan.

To elaborate on fresh-cut grass (according to my A.I. app, Perplexity): 

"The smell of freshly cut grass is caused by compounds known as green leaf volatiles (GLVs), such as cis-3-hexenal, which are released when grass is damaged by cutting. For the grass, these chemicals act as a distress signal: they warn other plants of danger and can even attract predators to fend off the insects eating the grass."