My dad had came to town and bought my husband a chainsaw. Lopping down one tree quickly exposed another leggy monstrosity. Years without sufficient light and competing so ruthlessly for resources had left the bushes and trees ugly and misshapen. Jacob decided on the trees that had to go, but once they were gone it was as if he had taken the skirts off of the rest of the trees and exposed a forest of gimpy legs.
In one weekend the front yard became a forest of spikes. The trees we kept didn't look quite right. Many were growing at strange angles that made sense when they'd been skirting a rather gluttonous/greedy bush, but now they jutted out with no purpose, Vs and Ps, like letters fallen out of their words, memories of the old lawn, incomprehensible pieces of a forgotten story.
He left three small trees at the northwest corner of the house, and they stood there through the winter awaiting the second reaping. But come March we saw the mulberries. Like some offering of gratitude. The branches bowed to the ground laden with the berries in their natural ombre of green to pink to black. The squirrels and the birds mostly had their way with the ripe berries before we could, but we heeded the tree's gesture.
And we didn't cut it down.
