grown wrong

The fecund marsh we step in
Bore an obelisk of good
Whose arms were switch'd to weapons
When we meddled with its wood

We inquired whence it came
Who it was and how and why
Was it pressing down the plain
Was it propping up the sky

The wind (its tongue) did whisper
Made a curtsy with its boughs
Our vertiginous fixture
Spoke of was, will be and now

It told us, at length, of age
Man, a pond. Itself, ocean;
How envy becomes rage; the
Illusion that is motion

With a fury hard and shrill
We addressed it in the fen
"You stay stoic then, stand still,
As we truncate now your stem."

This strange thing without caprice
To our horror and chagrin
Seemed so dreadfully at peace
As we tore it limb from limb

Its fingers were our arrows
Arrowheads, the teeth of saws
We sapped it of its marrow
It became without because

Its attire it did yield
For our bite was worse than bark
Standing naked, without shield
It bathed terribly in spark

Unkindly we used kindling
Pieces stolen from its breast
Cinder, cedar, grown, dwindling
Tissue tormenting the flesh

It would never asked us why
So we put it in the ground
Then the branches got too high
so we chopped the good tree down