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Section 01 – Tree Removal by Sam Aureli

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Section 01 – Tree Removal | Sam Aureli

GENERAL NOTES

  1. This document covers the removal of a white oak,
    older than any of us, older than the house,
    and somehow still trying.
  2. The work was necessary.
    That does not make it less of a loss.
  3. It stood through storms that renamed streets,
    through years when the house changed hands,
    but the shade didn’t.
  4. It held the yard together.
    It gave us a place to stand without thinking about why.

EXISTING CONDITIONS

  1. The canopy thinned gradually,
    as if practicing disappearance.
  2. Hollowing present but concealed.
    Decay progressed inward,
    doing its work quietly.
  3. The trunk remained load-bearing.
    Leaves returned on schedule.
  4. From the outside, it performed as expected.

ASSESSMENT

  1. This was not sudden failure.
    This was a long decline—the kind that forces you
    to decide when endurance becomes danger.
  2. Leaving it would have meant collapse,
    not dramatic, just unavoidable.
  3. The risk was not to the tree.
    The risk was to what it had spent its life protecting.

PREPARATION

  1. Call the arborist.
  2. Learn the vocabulary of permission:
    a. canopy reduction,
    b. controlled drop,
    c. section by section.
  3. Establish boundaries.
  4. Remove what can be carried away.
  5. Stand back.
  6. Stay close enough to witness.

REMOVAL

  1. Begin at the highest point. There is no gentler order.
  2. Each cut is measured, precise, almost reverent.
  3. Limbs descend like remembered instruction—
    how to hold, how to shelter, how to last.
  4. The sound travels farther than expected.
  5. The smell is green, old, unmistakable.
  6. The trunk resists, not out of will,
    but because it has always been upright.
    It has been doing this work for a very long time.

STUMP

  1. What remains is broad, exposed,
    ringed with years you can count but not translate.
  2. There is decay at the center,
    a soft place where strength used to be.
  3. No one is surprised. We were hoping.

AFTER

  1. The yard is brighter.
    This is not an improvement.
  2. Birds hesitate, then leave.
  3. The space feels unguarded.
    The sky presses closer.
  4. We keep the wood.
    It feels wrong to let all of it go.
An illustration of a honeybee painted in warm orange and yellow tones against a black circular background.

Bonus audio of Sam reading his poem:

About the author:

Sam Aureli is a design and construction professional, originally from Italy, now calling the Boston area home. A first-generation college graduate, he’s spent decades immersed in concrete and steel. Poetry is what truly feeds his soul these days. With retirement still some time away, Sam balances the grind of his day job with the refuge he finds in writing. His work has appeared in The Atlanta Review, West Trade Review, Chestnut Review, and other literary journals. Sam was also the Grand Prize Winner in The October Project’s 2025 Poetry Contest, a Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review 2025 International Poetry Competition, and shortlisted in the Bournemouth Writing Prize.

Artwork
Issue #24 ~ Summer 2026

3 replies on “Section 01 – Tree Removal by Sam Aureli”

I felt the loss of your old oak Sam 💛. Such an interesting structure and it works well with the subject matter.

Sam, I held my breath reading each line of your amazing poem, an elegy for an elder. Made me think of my neighbor’s towering hickory, taken down last year.

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