Dendrophobia

Poem by Marge Kimpton

They say it’s because she’s afraid of trees

that the new owner

of the old Bennett wood lot

has reduced a fine stand of oak

to the stubble of late autumn fields,

leaving a two acre tonsure

on the crown of Abbot’s Hill.

And because he’s afraid of bees

the new owner

of the old Eliot farmstead

has burned the ancient peach orchard

to rubble in a runaway brush fire,

leaving a sooty three hectare beard

on the face of Spinster’s Leap.

And because he’s afraid of burglaries

the new resident

of the Genuine Provincial Chateau

has replaced a copse of rustling birch

with a jumble of electronic briars,

leaving a furlong of thickset wrinkles

on the brow of Prophet’s Crest.

Natives of several generations

(and newcomers not yet weaned from Thoreau)

are confounded by such amenities

as the chemical lawns

            silent alarms

            pizza delivery

            cable TV

            street numbers

            touch tone phones

            machines that fax

            and cul de sacs

brought by settlers

determined to recreate

in our fallow groves and pastures

the tarred and treeless streets

of  the cities they hoped

to escape.