Buzzing and sawing, not the usual song bird
orchestra, woke me this morning.  Gathering
back thick curtains, I opened the window wider.
  In flowed bright blue sky with a squally wind.
Back yard trees buffeted uncontrollably
like boats in a storm.   In roared, too, a raucous,
unwelcome, constant chain-saw sound.

Someone was cutting down the green-auraed
half-fallen tree! Throwing on my old brown
sweater, pulling up my jeans, I called to
Little Running Horse, "Onyx hurry, come here!"
  We ran outside, bounded down the street,
were one with the corner like race car drivers.
There they were, feeding beautiful branches
one at a time in to a giant metal toothed maw.
  Cut up trunk pieces lay all over the grass
like felled chess pieces. They were cutting
down the entire tree, even the towering
still-standing half from last night lay grounded.
  Onyx and I starred at the working
men of the assembly, disassembling line,
watching beauty disappear.
Only a stump remained.
  A grave marker.

Orion's band played melancholy taps
at the memorial service yesterday for soldiers fallen.
  Peter's uncle enlisted at 22. He died in World War Two.
Shock waves rent through his family,
waves still Peter occasionally feels.
His life as a brilliant-future concert pianist felled-
at the Battle of the Bulge.
  I imagined other soldiers who died
to save the earth from Nazis - lives with futures,
families.  Gone.
Flags, flowers, white grave markers, waves,
memories remain.
  And... honor.

In my mind, I sang taps too for this tree, downed,
broken, dying before its time.
Are trees worthy of love, devotion and...  honor?
Google Frank Knight in Yarmouth, Maine and Herbie.
  You will see.

I walked back to the house
thinking nothing.
Trying to clear every thought with space
  for the creator to come in, always to come in,
explain everything to me.
Onyx never needs to do that...
Wagging her tail, she held her nose high,
sniffing the air.
  She is like Winnie the Pooh, carefree outside,
happy to be going home for breakfast.