about a real event

[wasellajam]

Seven years on
 
The ancient ash tree fell
quietly: its hollow shell,
lately the home of bees,
bereft of its past might.
 
(They, being wise,
a month before departed
knowing it had died).
 
Two centuries it stood
and now it rests
prone, year on year:
a lair for creeping things.
Reluctant to descend at last
into eternal night.

Hi, Luckiman, welcome to the Pen!

I think this poem lands where it aims: respect, loss, resignation. Living under a mixed forest in a time of ash borers this poem hit my heart. Some notes:

Taking the thread label at its word I have an issue with “quietly”. I’ve heard a wide variety of sounds when they fall but have never experienced a two hundred year old tree falling quietly. The only way I can think of is the “If a tree falls and no one hears does it make a sound?”. I don’t think that’s what the poem has in mind and even if it did, quietly reads off to me, I think you could find a better word there.

Love the hollow and those smart bees. Eternal night is cliched, you can do better there.

Thanks for posting, I enjoyed the read.