by Gus Peterson
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| Boy, 16, Arrested After Felling of Famous U.K. Tree That Appeared in 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.’ The tree, known as the Sycamore Gap tree, appeared in the 1991 movie 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. —People, September 29, 2023 |
Minutes after it breaks,
the breaking down of it,
speculation online—
only a trained arborist
could have done this,
the cut so surgical,
the wound so practiced.
Only one versed in
disassembling the world,
only inhuman hands
would hold the hungry teeth
of a saw so steady,
impart such cleanliness
to death, here where the empire
at last reached its limit,
Roman wave thinning
over the beach of the world
the way a dough’s fabric,
rolled again and again,
tears. In the end,
vandalism. In the end,
just another kid. In the end,
any surgery a cutting open,
off, the inside revealed
out, that all too human face
leaning in for a look,
admiring its handiwork.
Gus Peterson lives and works in Maine.