Too sad to watch.

I lost a good friend today.

I went in to work on my day off to try to get a few things done, and all the while I worked, I could hear the sounds of power tools. I didn't think much of it as there are only two seasons here where I live -- winter and construction -- but when I came out to my car, my heart dropped into my stomach.

The great elm tree in the parking lot across the street was being taken down.

It was towering, and lush, and regardless of what sort of day I was having, I always welcomed its sight. Just looking at it calmed me -- a connection to Earth in the midst of so much pavement and brick.

The elm tree was easily forty years old, probably more, and when I saw the people with the chainsaws gleefully cutting its great boughs without any sort of compassion, I couldn't turn my head fast enough. The image of the tree, stripped of nearly all of its branches, with only the very top crowned in so many green leaves, is burned into my memory, no matter how hard I try to banish it.

I wonder if its brother, the great horse chestnut in the diagonally opposite corner, will meet a similar fate.

They paved paradise / put up a parking lot ...