Get to the root of the matter

You'd think an oak tree so grand deserves the dignity of being described in anthropomorphic terms.

Just look at "her." Her large, lower branches reach out as if to embrace guests at a formal dinner party. Her lofty crown rests against a nimbus of saintly sunlight. She set up a tangle of sharp twigs to protect her little saplings from the murderous tantrums of a brush hog. She's dug her heels in the earth like an immovable Italian grandmother stirring ragu on the stove.

Wait. What? All this anthropomorphism doesn't match up. Okay, the tree is a "she." Got it. But is she a highborn host of a dinner party? A saint with faraway eyes? A nervous mother of vulnerable children? An Italian grandmother who hasn't removed her apron in a generation?

We've stared out our window at this tree for years now. Can't she just be a majestic oak tree? Isn't that more than enough? Why the fuss? Well, because we're chopping her down, that's why. And we're feeling somewhat guilty for not feeling somewhat guilty about it. So perhaps if we bestow a little humanity upon it, maybe it will rub off on us. Just a theory.

The tree is our elder by at least 30 years. It was an acorn when our parents were embryos. It was an acorn and nothing but an acorn, and now look at it. Our parents grow weaker, and the oak tree grows stronger. Our parents get quieter, and the oak tree grows more flamboyant.

It — "she" — is still game for a tree fort. She has called out to our son while no one else is around. "Check me out, little child. Never in your life will you see a more suitable tree for a fort. Look at these lateral limbs! They're practically plumb level with the ground. What is your father waiting for? If he loves you, he will build you a tree fort — right here! The fun we'll have. Plus, look — mountain views!"

But she is not a "she." She is an "it." Still, her point is well taken: On our land, tree forts of the mind outnumber actual tree forts by about six to zero.

The month is March, and the tree remains dormant, which is great because if "it" is a "she," she won't know what hit her. She's been blocking sunlight from the vegetable garden. That's what this is all about, by the way. We like our vegetables, and if God wanted oak trees to lord over us, he would have made them carnivorous rather than deciduous.

Our emotions get kind of complicated as the hour approaches. What's the matter with branches just being branches, crowns just crowns, bark just bark? Sadly (I guess), "it" will be denied a future as a "she" because "she" won't someday be a wooden ship; "it" will be firewood, then coal, and then dust. And someday we'll be dust together, which is kind of funny because if "it" is a "she," we'll be equals in the end, and then she can have the last laugh.

Whoa, that just made me dizzy. Tire swings make me dizzy, too. We never put up that tire swing, either.

We dally about a tree on death row. But now it's time. My good friend Del has arrived. He knows what he's doing. He used to work on a tree crew. We haul the chain saws, mauls and iron wedges down and set up a workstation. The closer you get to "it," the more it resembles a permanent, geological feature. It is huge, maybe 65 feet tall, and as wide as it is tall.

I am getting a little teary-eyed. We had a white oak like this one in my yard growing up. Ants lived within the overlapping scales of its gray bark. I spent many afternoons commanding the ants to line up in formation. I figured we could join together and attack a neighboring willow. But the ants would always ignore me, and since then I've never been much of a leader. But I've always loved trees, and they have always loved me.

Amazing how quickly a huge tree can be felled by someone who knows what he's doing.

"Where do you want it to fall?"

"Right over there."

"Okay."

Del pulls the cord on the chain saw, and it screams of homicide. As I mark his line, I steal glances up into the branches and imagine bad things happening — paralysis, mainly. He cuts a notch, then he makes a back cut. Then he shuts the saw down and we pound wedges into the back cut to guide the oak tree toward its fate. We have already determined our escape route in case "it" becomes an angry "she." We bang a few more wedges into the back cut, and the creaking begins. Tendons start snapping. The tree starts falling. It's all in slow motion. It's falling exactly where it's supposed to fall.

It hits the ground, and the earth shakes. It looks twice as big on the ground as it did in the air. It looks twice as tragic as I could've imagined. She's down on the ground heaving. The dinner party is over. The ragu exploded. The saint has been martyred. The saplings have been orphaned.

If "it" is a "she," to err is only human.