The roots that clutch are all that's left

"I don't want to be driving by there when it all collapses," says Uncle John, "or maybe I do." Beneath a rock wall, an entire hillside is now bereft of trees. First they came for the pines, the bougainvilleas, and now for the albizias. (And no, this is not rooting out invasives to be replaced with native plants.) "Is there a plan?" I ask S. "I'm not the only one who thinks the new boss is just cutting everything down to show that he's doing something," he says. "I don't say anything to him any more; he doesn't listen." 

 

I tell the woman at the entrance to the Temple grounds that I've written comments about the tree apocalypse on Yelp and Google. "We're all on his shit list," she says of the boss man. "And he talks about his local roots," she adds, her eyes rolling like Prime Minister Meloni's. "If we refuse to do it, we'll lose our jobs--and have you seen the temple grounds?" I say I haven't, because I can't take my dog in there. "He's wrecking that, too." And he wants to get rid of all the cats.

 

We're all watching the path of Kiko, a hurricane in the mid-Pacific. It's expected to pass north of Hawai`i, unless it doesn't. There are still roots that clutch on that hillside, I hope, but they will relax as they decay.