The Elm at the Crossroads

satb | 5:00 | 1988

Walter Hard, a poet from my hometown of Manchester, Vermont, wrote this poem as an elegy for a venerable tree that was cut down to build an intersection.

TEXT

Of course a tree is just so much timber

Or so many cords of firewood.

The timber may make a home

Or the firewood may keep it warm.

But a tree like the elm at the crossroads

Has seen too much of life

To be just timber or firewood.

There it is with its thick trunk on the ground.

They’re chopping out the branches

And digging around the broad stump.

Count the rings.

A hundred and eight.

It could tell you a lot of history.

It was young when Factory Point was beginning.

There was the Tannery along the river

With piles of bark in the yard.

There was the woolen mill with its whirling looms,

And a dozen other mills along the stream

It really was Factory Point.

Think of all the people who have passed that tree!

Think of all the people

Think of the slow plodding oxen with loads of goods;

Heavy creaking wagons with blocks of marble

From the quarries on Dorset Mountain;

Gay prancing horses drawing shining buggies;

Processions in somber black;

Gay parades with bands and flying banners;

Ladies walking with parasols held over quaint bonnets;

Men with high hats and tailed coats.

Statesmen, scholars, warriors, artists—

All have passed under its spreading branches.

There it lies.

Just so many cords of firewood.

Of course it had to go.

It's a martyr to what we hope is progress.

Our rushing life cannot be stopped by a tree.

A hundred and eight years

To grow some firewood.

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