Each Tree He Has Cut Down

Sixty increasing acres
Of birch tree losing its hair
In the heat of summer.
Not particularly suited
To dehydrated, insipid
Prairie conditions:

Burning in the heat,
Skin peeling from its
Limbs, around its wounds,
Its view over the world,
The wisdom it shares,
By being there.

He thins them one by one
Choosing stronger trees to
Represent the tangled mess,
He has made beautiful.
He runs his hands across them,
Peeling back the bark in choice places.

Thinning makes them
Want to flourish,
Gives them room to grow,
He says confidently,
He says,
Trying not to notice his legs,

Peeling in the same manner
Of the birch tree bark.
Birch tree roots,
Spreading themselves for
Miles under primitive ground,
Away from cemented buildings,

Where the trees and him
Must now reside.
Sixty acres
Of a man trying to walk again,
Trying to feel
His heart again.

Flesh cuts cause structural damage,
Nerve cuts cause structural damage,
Summer heat causes
The man and the trees
To unfold themselves,
Wishing only for water.

Forty-nine acres of thinning,
Of forming pathways through the forest,
Of keeping up appearances
(After a while a man,
Cannot live
Without the trees).