Altar

I take the weekend to remember the tree that lived
for 220 years, stood another five as physiographic totem
to how high a tree can grow, dropping branches yearly
until its trunk’s decay threatened neighboring houses.

On the last morning still itself, core of rings unrevealed,
the tree climber slingshots a silky yellow line skyward
through its last remaining V of top branches, ties a rope,
has two men on the ground pull him up year by year.

From the crook of the V he uncoils a yellow rope, drops
it down, calls out “Ninety feet.” From there he must see
the marsh over the cathedral of surrounding trees, the
nearby storage complex moored on the capped artesian lake.

This tree that my grandfather buzzed in his Piper Cub
in the 50s and 60s, back from jobs in Nashville, Pittsburgh,
signaling my grandmother to drive to the airport, never
guessing Irma’s winds would give it a swaybacked bend.

Like a reverse game of building block tower, decades
of cylinder fall away from what becomes memory hologram
of a once grand being, host to songs of various birds,
drone chant chirrs of cicadas, scampering darts of lizards.

Five days later the smell of sawdust still ripe, I walk down
the trail to the stump whose rings I’ve counted, recounted, to
the Jenga crash of toppled sections, the tessellated cloak
of bark kicked down into a carpet of Escher-like mudcracks.

On the trail I’ve overturned a grill top, girded it with bricks,
placed in sticks and dead-dry magnolia leaves, forsook bow
drill for Circle K cigarette lighter, but refuse to use accelerants
which would cheapen my method to send up a memorial.

I’ve waited for twilight to remember the tree’s centuries
of strength and stillness, without knowing real devotion means
great labor. The magnolia leaves light like flares, burn bright,
but won’t light the sticks. Vespers pass to Compline.

I work from my seat: a cut ring of top branch I could barely
lift and carry, flicking the lighter on stacks of wide dead leaves
under sticks, until finally embers become steady golden light,
and I add the shaved piece with its many Saturn rings of age.

A gibbous moon hangs above the tree’s absence as witness.
A gaze of raccoons bustles through the underbrush. I cup
the tree’s warmth as fire crackles and glows, rich smoke curls
up. Under, around me, worms and insects work their ministry.

Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. His most recent chapbook is At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, December 2023). His poems have appeared in print and online journals and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.