City Tree

 

Back when Bruno Gerussi did his live CBC Radio show out of the Colonnade Theater, I wrote   performance pieces for him. City Tree hasn't been on the blog. Perhaps you can hear Bruno's voice...

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it's hard to be a city tree

  last summer i had six leaves

  this summer i've got ... four

  (a lady closed my bottom branch

   inside her taxi door)

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  i've only heard that there are birds

  no birds land on bay street

  except pigeons

  pigeons are more people than birds

  have you ever noticed?

  pigeons never sit in trees

  they prefer concrete

  like people

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  you wouldn't believe what they do to me

  the dogs who lift or squat

  while pleasant-faced owners

  smile at passers-by

  what is there to smile about? 

  soiled trees

  soiled sidewalks

  and trees with so many problems

  facing that final indignity:  pee

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  look up!

  you cannot see the sun

  mornings it hides behind the bank

  afternoons beyond those towers

  it's only noon i see the sun

  i wish the sun would always shine on me

  for trees weren't meant to live in tunnels

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  frozen in snow the winter

  frozen in cement the summer

  my roots tingle in a sea of hot asphalt

  my tap root's in the sewer

  and i can still taste last winter's salt

 

  see my wound?

  the snow plow clipped me.

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  i fear i can't breathe properly

  some days my leaves are gray

  and the city settles on me

  like dust in a dead man's room

 

  i envy the trees in front of eaton's

  it always rains on them

  it only rains on me when the store behind me

  has its awning up

  it rained this morning

  but i guess it stopped

 

  i love the rain!

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  the tree that lived next door to me ... isn't

  they broke him--

  the people in the night

  his stump was there for six days

  and the hurry-people who work downtown

  walked around him

 

  the city eventually took him away

  covered his hole with hot tar

  i didn't know him well

  he was only a little tree

 

    and the city makes sure to plant us

    fifty feet apart

    so we can never touch each other in the wind

    city trees can't  touch

    it's very sad--

    don't you think?

 

it's hard to be a city tree

  they built a cage around my trunk

  wire mesh so i could not be touched

  i guess it's for protection but

  trees ... like ... being touched

 

  a friendly pat from a passerby

  kids climbing

  the tickles of squirrel feet

 

    i wonder what

    squirrels 

    look like?

 

bay street

is such a lonely place

     for a tree