Last night the wind picked up and, as I gently dropped into sleep, it not so gently opened its mouth and blew and blew and blew through the branches-spread-wide summer forest dark.

This morning, the alarm woke me. Wait: was it the alarm? Dream-dazed. It sounded like an alarm. No, it wasn’t the alarm. It was further away, it was down the stairs, it was the phone ringing.

Sign; groan; whispered curse; first thoughts. Who calls at — what time was it — 7 a.m. on a Saturday? The phone stops ringing. The body relaxes. Long, slow breath, like a yawn but not a yawn. Imagine an hour’s more sleep.

The phone starts ringing. Augh!

Who is calling this early? My parents and daughter on the island? Why? A cool liquid runs into my veins. Or my friend in Boston, early on her way to the research lab. That is more comforting. I wrap myself in bed clothes and hurry down the stairs. The phone stops ringing just as I reach for the handset.

The calling log identifies my friends up the hill, the owners of this property where I have rented, now, for about a year. The off-hour call is not what my imagination painted, anyway. A deep wake-up breath: then my return call: Oh, hi, Mark. Did we wake you…?

Breath in: day; breath out: discard aches, discard frustrations. Yes, and it is a beautiful morning! Good morning, Barbara!

They were heading off to Maine this morning, an early start on a 3-hour trip, and as they turned out of their drive they noticed a huge limb had fallen overnight, completely blocking the road behind them, the section of road that connects the rest of the world to five or six houses up-mountain, of which mine is one. They suggested I try to call the Township Roads Manager at home, and gave me his name; though on a perfect summer weekend it was unlikely he’d be available. There were other names, but similar weekend stories.

There’s no liability, though, if I just take a chainsaw to it myself…? It’s a public road, but they wouldn’t mind if I cleared it myself…?

We live in a part of the land where people take care of themselves, and of one another: New Hampshire, specifically, outside of the cities where folks have forgotten they are able-bodied and talented; and the region, generally, polka-dotted with hardscrabble farms cleared out of the bony, stony hills. I filled the saw with chain oil, topped off the tank with two-stroke gasoline, and drove down the road to see what they had seen.

Years ago, a young sapling sent limbs in two directions, a wish-bone “Y”. As time passed, limbs had grown and like all things living had filled in (until last night, a muscular “Y”). Imagine someone standing on a hilltop and holding up their arms, in supplication or celebration, toward heaven: ahhhhh! Last night’s wind brought one tired arm to ground. The heavy lower section had wedged as it had fallen between two neighboring trunks, the body had levered and spun, and the road filled with its collapse.

I have taken down trees before. Lots of suspended weight here; lots of unseen forces where one branch touched ground and twisted the trunk’s fibers this way, while another branch’s weight, suspended above the earth, twisted another. No injuries, please. Take the predictable limbs first, those that are in the air. Cut slowly from above, until the first movement is noticed, the first slight ceding toward the ground. Watch for details about its movement: will it spin? How will it land? Make sure your own limbs are clear of gravity’s path. Make sure your awareness is in your body, while your attention is at the cutting. Take sections from the larger limbs, that they fall more lightly, one predictable portion at a time, that the fall of the last suspended section — the heaviest — is an obvious straight-line path to the ground.

Small branches, larger limbs, one big trunk. Cut a wedge out of that last one, so the corners of the cut won’t close on the chain, seizing the saw, and pulling one’s awareness out of the body and into the problem: a problem makes one’s focus smaller and smaller, so that should a sudden movement come, you’ve become nothing more than a whirring metal chain, while everything else — your body, your life — is unseen and vulnerable.

The chain lodged once. I felt foolish, until I thought myself out of that thought, and back to the feeling: darn it! I turned off the saw, took a breath, thought about it. Again: if you become the saw, because something has gone wrong, you really are in danger. Stop. Push on the limb: does it move easily? No. Might it come down (on you) if you mess around with it? No, firmly in place. Can you lift that huge limb, to loosen the pinched timber? Not much; but by lifting slightly and using the chain bar as a lever slightly, I made millimetric progress, and in a minute the saw was free. I stepped back to consider how to handle this massive limb.

~

A car pulled up, from the section of road — our section of road — that was under siege. An older man and woman, well dressed, stepped out. “Well, there’s some good cord wood here…” begins the man. The woman, a little nervously: “I’m so glad someone started this. We’re already late. We got a late start already. It’s his mother’s…” She glanced briefly toward her husband, who stood like a leather pillar, surveying the tree, “… this morning is the visitation service for his mother’s. We’re already late.”

She stands unmoving until her husband moves. He bends to drag the limbs I had already cut to the side of the road. The path is not yet clear. That largest limb has to be taken down.

However finely dressed, the skin’s leather suggests the man has seen many hours under the sun. He sighs: “Well, let’s get this one down, then we can take that section of the other, maybe we can move the rest. Maybe we’ll be clear…” He grips the remaining half-cut limb and pulls on it, to see if the cut I have made will cede. It does not.

Having stepped away for a moment, I have better insight into the limb, however: I can make an undercut, there, then lightly ring the wood on the far side, where the wedge I had taken is holding it free, beyond where the chain was pinched. I make the subtlest chain-saw bites, touch… touch… touch. The limb quivers. I stop and step back, and turn off the saw.

From the further extremity of that log, from the point of greatest leverage, I push perpendicular, the limb sighs, then falls, then lies heavily still.

Cutting a four-foot section of the remaining limb was uneventful. Without a word, the man and the woman gathered the last branches out of the road, then both bent over to roll and pitch the huge cut limb out of the way. Without a word, they turned back to their car, got in, and started the engine.

The car pulled ahead through the opening we had made, rolled carefully past the fallen wood, the woman offering a brief, distracted wave of her hand in thanks, the man expressionless, filled I am sure with road ahead, the certain destination, and the farewell to another loss.

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