Russian Olive

The note said only this:

Knock down the tree.

You read the note,

pressed it into the palm of my hand, asking,

“Which tree?”

I considered.

We had a job to do. Saws, axes, fuel, shovels in the bed or our truck.

“One of the three trillion trees inhabiting this planet,” I suggested.

We debated while sitting in our work truck.

Living tree or dead?

We started a list: sugar pine, magnolia, quaking aspen,

White oak, golden willow, yew…

“Maybe something with thorns,” you suggested.

Russian olive.

We drove ‘til we spotted one,

off-green, branches distorted as if one-hundred years arthritic.

Maybe ugly.

You tore into the gnarled trunk with your chainsaw until,

with a cracking noise,

pure sunlight pushed the olive down.

We further disassembled the tree,

Snapping off smaller branches with gloved hands, axing the bigger.

“Is it the thorns that made this tree bad?” I asked.

“Nope.  Was the boss that made it bad.  Maybe us.”

-- Mitchell Hegman