Tree
Patrick T. Reardon
There is not now standing at
18th Street, west of Prairie
Avenue, the large cottonwood
tree that, a sapling, witnessed
the war of peoples that turned
the soil into real estate, the
mud place into city. Fed into
a fire place.
The Tower of Silence chatters at
her McDonald’s table, walled with
packages and luggage and her
sunglasses and the Cincinnati
Reds cap, centennial edition.
The old oak blazed next to the
World War I cannon at the start
of Grand Avenue, near the Pizza
Hut, and never crisped, blazed
without blackening, consumed
all the night from the dirt to the
sky as the white light line went
one way and the red light line the
other in three a.m. rain-snow.
Broken bread left over is tossed
to scriptural pigeons in the alley
across from the cathedral door.
From the sacristy window, the
polio cardinal patterns the pigeon
walk as if for kabalic import. He
turns to his questioner and says
we pray for our enemies — the
mastermind was human, the one
wearing the device was human,
the one piloting. Hard saying.
The unwashed body was found at
the foot of the old treaty elm on
Kilbourn, just north of Rogers
Avenue, the Old Indian Boundary
Line. After a white line was drawn,
the tree was sliced and diced and
fed into the chipper, and the chips
were piled over the old soul shell
and set afire, like a French girl
martyr. From a distance, teens
drank beer and watched.
Followers gathered at Cricket
Hill between soccer games to
listen to the humble homily about
the archangel that led the disciple
out of Cook County Jail, doors
opening as if by special effects, and
on the sidewalk, nowhere to go,
but he goes anyway.
Chicago is a land of honey, land of
milk, suckled and slurped. Rust is
the color of the city’s true love.
Let truth be A and hope B and C is
the sea-like lake, remnant of the
ice time, rising blue-gray to the
edge of sight, the end of vision,
the vision of the torn temple veil,
tombs open, the ground shaking
and a mustard seed.
Patrick T. Reardon
4.22.26
This poem originally appeared at Michigan City Review of Books on 4.21.26
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.