Arbor Day (Interrupted) By Gerry Hubbard, Performed By David Hubbard

Arbor Day

In the northwest Catskill mountains there’s a tree upon a lawn

And it must have had a million views of glee and rights and wrongs

Bore storms of rain and ice and sleet and winds that cut to bone

And all the while surveilled the stead that eight kids called our home

Near eighty years it stands there still, it’s drawn a lot of grief

From kids and cows and cats and dogs that used it for relief

To scratch and mark their turf and climb the shady branches high

To revel in the rustling leaves and sights of endless sky

Linemen cut a tunnel through to let the power run

It stands now like a “Pacman”, not having any fun

Susan’s leery of that tree since birds fell to their death

She thinks the power lines touched leaves and purloined their last breath

Thirty-thirties, twenty twos and shotgun slugs galore

Have pierced its hide and left the scars that fingers can explore

Almost girdled several times with axes, saws, and knives

It took it all and stands there tall, a sentinel of our lives

Dad got it from a rocky patch because of country lore

“Sown on stone, thrive in soil, it’s hardy to the core..”

Births and deaths and family rifts, it stood in silent guard

As family worked and wept and wed around and in the yard

Butchered pigs and deer and calves were hung from that old tree

It anchored wagons, cars and trucks and bulls that tried to flee

It shaded picnics, broken hearts and lots of books to read

It stood there silent, statuesque and never seemed to heed

The measles, mumps, and broken bones, pink eye, and ticks, and stings

Bruises, scratches, bumps and cuts, kicks and bites and dings

Eight kids living “country” and growing up real fast

Just looking to the future, not caring for the past

Marine Corps, Army, Navy called to get us off the farm

Five kids served and five came home safe and free from harm

Homecomings sweet and shaded all around that battered tree

It stood there silent, watching? I wonder, “Could it see?”

And did it revel in the joy and suffer from the sad

And did it comprehend at all the mere short time we had

While it could live two hundred years, standing tall and straight

The youngest son at fifty-eight passed through that final gate

About a hundred years from now with all great grandkids grown

When all of us and our kids are bare and silent bone

Will they go back up to “The Hill” to smell and feel and see

The wonder and the magic of that dauntless, scarred old tree?

Susan Ciacci Oh, I love that song about our tree we all knew so well.
It's part of us. In later years, when it was cut out for the electric lines,
I called it the Pac Man tree. When the branches touched the wires,
Mom and I would sometimes find a dead bird on the ground. We figured it had been electrocuted.
Since then, I never messed around that tree much.