I was surrounded by trees when I was a boy –
cedars mostly and three apple trees with sad fruit.
In front, branches hanging over State street, lived two Dutch elm trees.
They had a tree disease and someone cut them down.
I knew those two trees as a boy –
squirrels racing along their branches,
birds flying about in their branches.
My father said, “they have Dutch elm disease.”
It meant nothing to me.
I came home from school one day and they were gone.
I didn’t mourn.  I looked at the stumps then went on with boyhood.

Today, men came to my yard and cut down my birch trees.
They have a disease, they said, the bronze birch borer disease.
They are dying so they must be cut down –
nothing left but to make them into wildlife snags.
Bugs will live in them and birds will come to feed on the bugs.

It is painful being an adult, saying, “cut down those trees.”
“Those trees have the birch borer disease, so they must go.”
Now they are gone – the leaves gone –
the small spring green leaves, yellow autumn leaves,
the tangle of thin whippy branches.

Come on bugs and birds!
What’s left of my birch trees is all yours now –
I wait for you to come with spring after this long winter.

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Portland, Oregon – January 10, 2017

Photo is my own, taken this date after the largest snowfall in Portland in a long time! The trees were cut the day before.