Stump
Carol Hamilton
Though apple, mimosa, peach
and other ephemeral lives came
and went without much note…
that huge old elm ruled my life
for decades. How I grieved
when ice-heavy topplings threatened
death and its plagued leaves
also gulped my income down,
until at last the cash flow turned
from rescue to amputation year
by year. The elms' threatening branches,
high and heavy, were cut and carted away.
Now only a giant orb of stump remains,
bereft of all grace. My yard is left shadowless.
Yesterday the garden man on the radio
told me subterranean roots, mine
reaching to the four corners of my lot,
will rule my gardening hopes for years
to come. There is no cure for this.
Here in what I call the real world,
I loved and tried to save a tree,
oblivious to how each loss shakes earth's air
even while this prairie wind scurries off
with others' autumn leaves, dry, spent,
dancing away from me.
Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 19 books and chapbooks:: children's novels, legends and poetry. She has been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.