My dad was a forester, so I grew up liking trees. When we moved into our house 33 years ago, I was delighted to see a row of four European spruce trees in our side yard. At that time I could almost reach the top of the three smaller ones. The older, larger tree grew to nearly 70 feet.
Over the years we came to anticipate the soft murmur of the wind in these trees, the lazy way snow lay on the swooping boughs in winter and the piney fragrance that colored the air around our house in the heat of summer.
I guess I thought these trees would live forever. My daughter helped me plant hostas in their shade. The thick bed of needles offered a perfect setting for pieces of sculpture and some gnarly driftwood. All was well.
Then came the drought two summers ago. The skies dried up for endless weeks and the temperatures soared. Lower limbs of the spruce trees turned brown. Needles fell. The fragrance declined and vanished. One by one, the trees died.
Last week men came with chainsaws and cut them down. They sliced up the trunks and branches and hauled everything away. If it weren’t for the stumps still hovering low to the ground you wouldn’t know the trees had ever been there.
On a whim, I asked the men to spare one slender tree trunk. It is tall and straight. My idea is to turn it into a flagpole. It will help me remember the spruce grove.
I suppose we will find other things to plant in the open space where the trees once stood. Flowers, shrubs, maybe even more trees. Even so, sometime when the wind blows at night, I will absently listen for the murmur in the trees.
