Detested suburb, cleared barren clay-earth for post-war housing builds
For eight years prior, my sky was canopied with trees
Each spring neighbors whitewashed the trunks, puzzling painting for some
Unknown protective reason. But at the park trees remain unpainted,
A mere block away, it is stunning in its surround of trees,
Planned, it was said, by the landscape architect who–after designing
Lake Shore Drive’s matchless miles of beauty along Lake Michigan–
Dictated the design of all Chicago neighborhood parks.
Trees were all I saw in walks to the bus past established neighborhoods
From trains to the Loop and car and bus rides,
Later peering at treetop blankets beneath planes uplifting from Midway Airport then O’Hare.
 
Then, continuing to circumvent Lake Michigan, college where “The Pine Grove” provided a
Verdant outdoor study spot interrupted only by 60s gatherings to protest one injustice or another.
Lastly, my Secret Garden home, bought for its gardening potential and tree borders, not the house
Far behind the triple cordon guarding us from street noise
Until the bike path–where no cyclist ever rode–demanded the first line of infantree be cut
Including the corner lot tree, so large that three peoples’ arms couldn’t encircle its trunk:
It challenged three sawing for half a day before it bowed to earth.
 
When my life dramatically changed in the way of fairy tales,
I unexpectedly came to dwell and delight among trees randomly
Self-seeded or bird-borne decades ago in rolling top-of-the-lake dunes
Where only grasses invade the sand and prevail against strong winds
Some trees are pruned by Mother Nature’s wind or lightning push to the ground. Then we
Startle to new views of the inland sea measured in land and added sunlight. Yet for most of
Winter-fall-spring, we cannot approach the lake through snowdrifts strong winds off our lake and
Lake Superior to our north mold into impassable mounds on the boardwalk
Dictated by Department of Environmental Quality–dread DEQ–dedicated to preserving pristine dunes.
 
Trees around our home may bear strange carbuncles, cankers of unknown earlier diseases;
Big as watermelons, they shamelessly create a beauty in their ugly imposition.
Tall tree trunks we’ve stuck in a sand line marking a transition from steps to shore are dubbed
“Stags”, not for similarity to deer who roam daily as if they own the woods (which, in fact, they do)
Smelling trails their primogenitors marked, creating new ones judging by hoof prints on our
 
Long front porch, unused in winter, seldom used in summer as our eyes look lake-wards
Where often omnipresent clouds disconnect permitting a glance of sunbeams, so I follow my passion
Picking up driftwood–in the tradition of Michelangelo I seek faces in the wash-ups, and
Spend some of the eight-month inclement wintry seasons bringing angels to the surface,
Where, from my ground-level Diva Den windows, I survey evergreens filled with chickadees,
Squirrel jousts, an occasional fox crossing, chipmunks,and deer at whom I ulalate if they approach
They stare in jaded boredom now, move away in sophisticated precision from
Carefully planted rock-and-shrub gardens, as we sigh for spring-summers four months,
Known to us year-round residents as “bugs” and to cottagers and returning snowbirds as
“Company” as they welcome–or not–the predictable encampments of visiting family, friends,
Possibly strangers, as we did years ago after a 50th reunion…someone just passing through:
 
We live at the tip-of-the-top of the lake…drop in.