The crows are watching.
I do believe the grubs have got to me.
Pieces turn gray and fall off.
Giant beetles have been found
on and around me.
I have sprung leaks when it rains.
I am getting older and hollower
as the years pass.
There was a hollow tree,
a maple that stood
in front of my neighbor's house.
In heavy rainstorms
the water would run down it's limbs,
filling the trunk.
Even after the rain had subsided,
water would squirt from holes in the trunk
as if the tree was urinating on the sidewalk,
slowing to a trickle down the bark.
Even after the sidewalks had dried,
a puddle remained in front of this tree.
The trunk was far too large
to stretch your arms around.
We often found giant beetles
on and around the tree.
Being huge and old and hollow
it had a lot of dead limbs
that would occasionally
fall and crash on the walk
or into the street.
One day, a work crew came.
We watched as they took down it's limbs
and fed the small branches into a wood chipper.
The hollow trunk was half filled
with powdery brown dirt.
There were dozens of giant beetle larva.
Fat white grubs as big as a large man's thumb,
had been eating and shitting
inside the tree for years.
The grub excrement and rainwater
had formed a giant layer cake.
The workmen sawed away the bark
and wooden walls of the cake pan
and shoveled slabs of poopcake
into the trailer with the wood chips
The neighborhood crows
feasted on the grubs for a day or so.
After the last of the pudgy wood grubs
had disappeared down black beaks,
we saw no more giant beetles.
I am getting older and hollower
as the years pass.
I have sprung leaks when it rains.
Giant beetles have been found
on and around me.
Pieces turn gray and fall off.
I do believe the grubs have got to me.
The crows are watching.