The ash tree grows
surrounded
by the concrete sidewalk
except for the jack-hammered
hole it’s allowed
and a wrought iron
privacy fence
encircles its trunk.
It grows beside a gutter
with roots hearing
the rush of water overhead
after a downpour
but licks drips only
through cracks or sliding
off bark into hole
barely allowing dirt to show.
The ash tree sheds its leaves
stuffed between the wrought iron
bars like inmates pushing
arms through to grasp a notice
to their crowding as pedestrians
hunker down against the wind.
The ash tree grows a white beard
of piled-up snow shoveled
against its trunk so passersby
don’t slip and slide off the sidewalk
and into the gutter melting runoff
down the street like roots
expanding in search of concrete
freezing and thawing a crack
for a spring escape
from its grated allowance.