This tree I didn’t plant

Grew up choking.

Reaching through the uncaring grid

Wires, pressing into its neck

So slowly it didn’t even notice

That it was being cut in half.

  

Snip the lines and slip it free

From its first embrace,

Familiar, but murderous.

 

Pry its roots from the earth,

And for  those that don’t release their grasp--

The spade.

 

It may not survive in its new, lush soil.

Impossible to move it without butchering.

It was alive where it was,

But how long could it have continued

Casting suppliant leaves at the sky,

Winged seeds at the earth.