Pruned
A Poem
By AIDAN FITZSIMMONS
Figurine trees pose in the college yard,
unclimbable,
unfurling branches just above human reach,
ungraspable.
Today I studied one, circling softly,
squirrel mind loud,
searching for those subtle stairs only
simians sense.
They should be there; instead, there’s only stark
featureless bark
and dead gnarled nubs, wood belly buttons
where life would tree,
neutered for fear; would we become aware
of our freedom,
foolishly climbing by tree will, fleeing
the godlike shears?
But even those amputated limbs stay
as stumps unscaled,
for the true pruning leaves no trace but a
bare, “perfect” trunk,
pared before memory— natural or
unnatural?
While stuck there to the ground, somewhere in me
unplaceable
stirred an old ache for stolen potentials
and, now tender,
I felt the searing stings of phantom limbs
cauterizing.
Aidan Fitzsimmons (aidan_fitzsimmons@college.harvard.edu) can be found by looking up.