I missed the train to work this morning because I was caught in the middle of the road. Feet planted and shaking.

Four men were executing trees just feet from my bedroom window--first by hanging white rope around them and then by puncturing and slashing with chainsaws.

I begged them to tell me why they had to do it--had to clear cut the tree people that I have ever so tenderly been courting as friends and mentors over the past two years. The ones who shield the glare of the streetlights and allow the sweet moonlight to pour through. That rustle with the wind and rain. That exhale as I do.

With tears streaming down my face, I pleaded: stop, please stop. Giving way to the heartbreak of their fallen cries.

All a man could say over the deafening sound of machinery was, "They are all coming down."

I sit in the tension of cultural reckoning, not blaming these men for their task. Perhaps my presence offered only an annoyed moment of pause. But to the frozenness that has shielded us from feeling the loss we have capacity for--let it melt, let THAT all come down.