The Season of Discarded Trees

They've earned a little ritual. And a poem.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Several writers on Substack, notably the wonderful Ann Collins, are generous in sharing their contemplation of the “micro-seasons” that form the cycle of the natural world. This poem observes an cultural micro-season that some of my fellow city dwellers will recognize.

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AFTER CHRISTMAS


In the cold days at the turn of the year,
when twinkle-lights go dark in every window, when images
of Santa and stars and stockings are eclipsed by earnest lists
and ads for elliptical trainers, I see my neighbor,
as she walks down the street, stop next to each parched Christmas tree,
stripped of ornaments, felled to the grey winter curb. Each time
she reaches out to touch a branch, the stiffened needles 
clutching maybe a forlorn scrap of tinsel; she speaks 
a brief soft word, walks on. Once I was near enough, when she paused
by the corpse of a six-foot fir, to hear her speak: “Thank you,” she said,
“thank you.” Then, looking up to see the question on my face,
she gave a small shy shrug. “I feel like they deserve a word from someone
after all they gave. I tried saying ‘I’m sorry,’ but then I remembered
how much I love to see them shine in windows up and down the block.
When new trees go up next December I won’t be sorry,
I’ll be glad. Still, they pay the price for my gladness. ‘Thank you’
seems the least that I can say.”
                                                      “And do they ever answer?”
I heard myself ask, as if that were a reasonable question, which 
my neighbor seemed to think it was; she tipped her head, considered.
“Every so often, when I stop and speak to one, I get a noseful
of good green smell, just as I walk away. Other times, though,
the bigger branches trip me up or scratch my leg. One drew
a little blood. I wasn’t angry. I would feel the same.”

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[You can listen to an audio version of this poem using the little widget above the photograph.]

Shall I tell you a secret about this poem? Do you promise not to tell?

* whispering* That wasn’t my neighbor. That was me.

This poem is, in part, a story about me doing an eccentric thing and discussing it with myself.

Why? Because, though my poems are certainly written out of my own experience and from my own point of view, it gets tiresome (for the poet at least) to have myself as the main character in every blessed one of them. So now and then I split myself into two or more persons to tell a poem’s story. I’m admitting to it this once, but you don’t know how how many other times it may have happened.

Do not trust poets.

Trees, though; trees, you can trust. Another good reason to say thank-you to them whenever you can.