What stories can she can tell

I only remember her later years, of spreading shade over a grassy lawn,

her lower trunk still wet in the morning from the sprinklers. 

Day by day, I never noticed her change, over the years that I walked

by with the dogs, first Buddy and Portia,  then Bella, frolicking, her fur

jet black, now white around the snout.

She was a presence, a giver, this tree, that was one of several who were just

there.

Until she was not, the victim of roaring chainsaws, she came down in large 

pieces, death on the ground, and no sign of illness, the fallen victim of 

a distant bureaucrat who decided that she might fall one day, given her 

advanced age.

now, in her shrunken state, she can still offer of herself, a seat for a 

visitor from Texas, on a sunny day.

what stories can he tell?