The Tree That Lost the House It Shaded

Here’s the sort of parable
Humans tell the world so that
The world can spit it right back.

Every day a man drove by
A house he liked to daydream
One day maybe living in.

It had a wall around it.
It had south-facing windows
With a view of handsome cliffs.

Passing on the road below,
He could just make out a porch
Overlooking a courtyard,

With a huge, spreading, oak tree
To one side for summer shade
From the semi-desert heat.

For a moment each morning,
When he passed on his commute,
He imagined the sunrise

From high windows in winter,
The courtyard under the stars,
And reading by the shade tree,

It was one of those signposts
That peg out daily routine.
Then one evening, coming home,

The whole house was simply gone—
That bank of high south windows,
The wall around the courtyard.

Only the shade tree remained
Standing alone on its hill,
And although it was the tree

That had made the house charming
In those nearly treeless cliffs,
Who can fantasize living

On bare rocks under a tree?
Not easily. And the man,
Who’d owned nothing, felt cheated.