Poem in My Pocket

The War Against the Trees by Stanley Kunitz The man who sold his lawn to standard oil Joked with his neighbors come to watch the show While the bulldozers, drunk with gasoline, Tested the virtue of the soil Under the branchy sky By overthrowing first the privet-row. Forsythia-forays and hydrangea-raids Were but preliminaries to a war Against the great-grandfathers of the town, So freshly lopped and maimed. They struck and struck again, And with each elm a century went down. All day the hireling engines charged the trees, Subverting them by hacking underground In grub-dominions, where dark summer's mole Rampages through his halls, Till a northern seizure shook Those crowns, forcing the giants to their knees. I saw the ghosts of children at their games Racing beyond their childhood in the shade, And while the green world turned its death-foxed page And a red wagon wheeled, I watched them disappear Into the suburbs of their grievous age. Ripped from the craters much too big for hearts The club-roots bared their amputated coils, Raw gorgons matted blind, whose pocks and scars Cried Moon! On a corner lot One witness-moment, caught In the rear-view mirrors of the passing cars.