Outside, a landscaper removes box shrub branches

with chain saw, blows debris
into the fence line, weed-eats.

Since the apartment complex has been rebought,
they’ve tore through tree limbs

older than themselves, protecting
the old buildings from crashing potential
branches. 

I try and make room for all emptiness:
like how the hilly forest gave way 
to a better interstate exit. Like how the Earth
spirals through widening space in beautitude
always. Scars on trees.

I have to say,
trees look naked without their boughs
but I’m happy to avoid crushing potential. 
I have to say, the wider interstate exit
sure feels safer than before, 
though I miss the underutilized hillside.

Inside, I cultivate the garden 
of my sadness. Every day, 
a new and terrible informing I collapse
into myself. Nostalgia. Accumulative
and dissociative. Ennui.

Words for a lot of considered and faraway
and well-loved nothing.