Pruning

"...late 14c., prouynen, proinen, of a bird, "to trim 
the feathers with the beak;" of a person, "to dress 
or groom oneself carefully," from an extended or 
transferred sense of Old French proignier, 
poroindre "cut back (vines), prune" — etymonline.com


They tell Mark, we have no tall ladder, 
no tools to dismember the limbs of the tree: 
this annual pruning before spring's promise 
of regreening, so summer will be full of fruit. 

They also show him three planks on the deck's 
back steps— ends rotted through, middles soft— 
they need replacing. Along another length, 
dark streaks which call for power washing. 

He will cut, he will replace, he will fix
what needs fixing without fanfare; an hour
here and there in the weeks ahead, after 
his day working at his construction 

sites. They will pay him the honest cost 
of his labor by the hour, plus materials. 
The arrangement suits all of them. They come 
from people with histories of migrant labor—

people who've bent to furrows in the soil 
for ten cents a day and climbed the roofs 
of orchards when everyone else declined; 
people who've always struggled 

to make do with less. But today, as he
sits on the bottom step, he pauses; pulls out
his phone and tells them he's just returned 
from the islands, where he had to claim 

the body of his son from the morgue; 
arrange cremation, and then for the ashes 
to be sent to him. Only twenty, felled
by bullets after his own family 

kicked him out into the streets.
The photo he shows them leaves 
no doubt this child grew from 
the tree that is his father. 

Tall and willowy of build, angular 
jaw, smooth skin; so young. Eyes 
already shadowed by knowledge of what 
the world exacts by way of maintenance.