HomeMy WebLinkAbout9/29/2025 cc Rosten (Learning by Doing poem)From: Emily -
Sent Sunday, September 28, 2025 816 AM
To: Colunga-Lopez, Andrea
Subject Tree Poem to ponder...
Andrea,
Please forward to the tree Commitee...
Thanks,
Emily&
A poem to ponder. Seems associated with outwork on the tree committee.
Best,
Emily
a Welcome to poet George Bilgere's
online newsletter. Every day
George selects a poem by a writer
he's crazy about and he says a
few words about why he picked it.
Here's a poem for today, September 28, 2025
Learning by Doing
by Howard Nemerov
They're taking down a tree at the front door,
The power saw is snarling at some nerves,
Whining at others. Now and then it grunts,
And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds.
Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one
Big wind would bring it down. So what they do
They do, as usual, to do us good.
Whatever cannot carry its own weight
Has got to go, and so on; you expect
To hear them talking next about survival
And the values of a free society.
For in the explamtions people give
On these occasions there is generally some
Mean -spirited moral point, and everyone
Privately wonders if his neighbors plan
To saw him up before he falls on them.
Maybe a hundred years in sun and shower
Dismantled in a morning and let down
Out of itself a finger at a time
And then an arm, and so down to the trunk,
Until there's nothing left to hold on to
Or snub the splintery holding rope around,
And where those big green divagations were
So loftily with shadows interleaved
The absent-minded blue rains in on us.
Now that they've got it sectioned on the ground
It looks as though somebody made a plain
Error in diagnosis, for the wood
Looks sweet and sound throughout. You couldn't know,
Of course, until you took it down. That's what
Experts are for, and these experts stand round
The giant pieces of tree as though expecting
An instruction booklet from the factory
Before they try to put it back together.
Anyhow, there it isn't, on the ground.
Next come the tractor and the crowbar crew
To extirpate what's left and fill the grave.
Maybe tomorrow grass seed will be sown.
There's some mean -spirited moral point in that
As well: you learn to bury your mistakes,
Though for a while at dusk the darkening air
Will be with many shadows interleaved,
And pierced with a bewilderment of birds.
From The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov, University of Chicago, 1977.
From photographer Joe Freeman's project, "Clearcut," a harrowing series showcasing trees cut
down around 1917, when Keechelus Lake (Washington) was dammed.
Why 1 Chose This Poem
We just had a hundred -year -old silver maple
taken down in our front yard. It left a hole in
the sky that will never go away.
To read the daily National Poetry Month Poems by George, visit his website.4A
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