They came yesterday to see about the wood, the two straight trunks bisecting the back yard. Did they pass muster as lumber, or must we bring in the tree guys with their whirring chainsaws and chipper?

Don’t know the answer yet, but I wonder if they saw the potential, the long straight boards locked into those twin trunks, the 80-foot expanse of prime oak.

What I see is the chaos, the splintered branch, like bone through skin, the errant stick impaled in earth. I see the volunteer cherry uncentered and the earth ball like the underside of a mushroom.

I can barely stand to look at the trampoline. Of course, I can barely see the trampoline, so lost is it beneath the branches.

I see the heft, the waste, the terror. I see everything you don’t expect and some of what you do.