The King Lear of our backyard
has performed his last soliloquy,
mourned his last windy sorrows.
Now the rainy morning creaks
are solely mine. And still I ask,
What else could we have done?
You were no longer fit to rule,
despite your green deception.
A last flourish in the midst of decay.
In stormy fits, you threw
your lance-like branches
at our unsuspecting cars, the wounded
shed. We fretted how you would greet
another hurricane. And so
the crane came. A guillotine
of blades loped off your crown
and took you limb by limb, all 50
feet, one hundred years of shade. Now,
emptiness fills the garden,
the sky falling in on us.
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