Pollarded

"Newly pollarded willows on Canal Side,"
copyright David Lally and licensed for reuse under
this Creative Commons Licence

They’ll do it to crape myrtles, sometimes even
to pear trees and oaks, taking the long shears,
lopping off all new growth down to the knuckle.
It almost always is a mistake. It reminds me of
foot binding, "refining" nature by forcing what’s
natural to some geometer’s shape, a distortion
of beauty so terrible that it makes me helpless
with rage. Today, though, I saw a new sadness: a
gardener, himself pollarded, flooded by whiskey
and his own salt tears and choking on them both.
This is why we crack open; we can’t fit ourselves
within the crude shape of these rough prunings.