Consider the Tree

It stood in a damp patch of soil, squat. forlorn, mostly weary. The small branches had been snapped off and now tiny mounds of gnarled bark waved their stumpy fists in the air in mute rage. Beneath the ground was a jagged edge where the axe had spliced through, shredding the pith into a million fragments, snapping the tie that held together, branch and trunk.