"...late 14c., prouynen, proinen, of a bird, "to trim
the feathers with the beak;" of a person, "to dress
or groom oneself carefully," from an extended or
transferred sense of Old French proignier,
poroindre "cut back (vines), prune" — etymonline.com
They tell Mark, we have no tall ladder,
no tools to dismember the limbs of the tree:
this annual pruning before spring's promise
of regreening, so summer will be full of fruit.
They also show him three planks on the deck's
back steps— ends rotted through, middles soft—
they need replacing. Along another length,
dark streaks which call for power washing.
He will cut, he will replace, he will fix
what needs fixing without fanfare; an hour
here and there in the weeks ahead, after
his day working at his construction
sites. They will pay him the honest cost
of his labor by the hour, plus materials.
The arrangement suits all of them. They come
from people with histories of migrant labor—
people who've bent to furrows in the soil
for ten cents a day and climbed the roofs
of orchards when everyone else declined;
people who've always struggled
to make do with less. But today, as he
sits on the bottom step, he pauses; pulls out
his phone and tells them he's just returned
from the islands, where he had to claim
the body of his son from the morgue;
arrange cremation, and then for the ashes
to be sent to him. Only twenty, felled
by bullets after his own family
kicked him out into the streets.
The photo he shows them leaves
no doubt this child grew from
the tree that is his father.
Tall and willowy of build, angular
jaw, smooth skin; so young. Eyes
already shadowed by knowledge of what
the world exacts by way of maintenance.
