The gray tree that grew in the meadow, on the edge of the pond, was cut down yesterday. It was dead and winter was coming with wind and snow, but there was a sadness coming upon its massive and hollow stump in the foggy afternoon. I stood on the stump and looked into the rotted hole that was once the base wondering where will the crows perch as they summon the dawn with raspy calls?
Before Daniel was born there was an apple orchard behind the house. The trees were over one hundred years old planted by some distant family member whose name has long been forgotten. Due to lack of upkeep the trees had stopped producing apples and were covered in poison ivy but the birds loved the orchard, as did Mama, and the other wildlife that slinked and scurried in the tall grass under the low hanging branches.
“Falling right down,” Dad said into to Billy Burton while standing in the driveway. Billy leaned from the pickup window, “know what you mean,” he said, “Hate to see good land going to waste.” A few weeks later Billy came back and cut the orchard down. Dad had him come on a Sunday morning because we would be at church, and Mama, who was against the cutting of the orchard, would not be there to see it destroyed. But Billy was not done by the time we got home and Dad, Mama, and I walked behind the house to watch the bulldozer push down the last of the gnarled old trees as swallows swooped and dived catching the bugs disturbed from their hiding places. The bugs began to swarm forming a frantic cloud that moved before and around each toppling tree. Mama started to cry, and Dad said, “Ellen it had to be done.” His voice was harsher then he intended it to be, but to him the trees were dead and winter was coming with wind and snow.
Dad did instruct Billy to leave one apple tree standing. This particular tree stood away from the rest of the orchard on a rise of land behind the barn. This tree never produced edible apples only hard deformed fruit we threw into the empty cornfield in fall but the tree was not in bad condition and Dad could fit the lawn mower under it in the summer, a prerequisite to any tree standing on the property. The apple tree was my favorite place growing up for it was far enough from the house to feel free, close enough to feel safe, and high enough to keep a watch on the way back field that abutted the Great Dane kennel.
One winter full of wind and snow Mum, Dan, and I took a walk. As we rounded the corner of the barn something golden red flashed at the base of the apple tree. It was a dead fox. One of the foxes back feet was wrapped in wire; bloody it dangled from a bit of skin. “What happened?” I kept asking, “it must have got caught in a trap of some kind,” Mum said. The body was still only the tail blew back and forth in the wind. In the late afternoon sun all four of our shadows shadow stretched long and blue across the snow. Mum took our hands and led us back to the house.
Last summer the apple tree finally succumbed to old age, ants and rot. Dad cut it down for firewood.