Chipper Safety

[TreeSpyder]

2 Years ago this March; my buddy and i closed down this barely started job of this huge tree in a tight, tight box of wires, 2 houses, fences, flowers etc. on one of our nicer brick streets, just to help out.  Days earlier a local tree service owner, had his newleywed wife and crew out there; feeding the chipper from the electrical crew's safety trim the day previously; easy-cheesey cleanup- no problem!  He wandered back to see what she mighta called for, worked his way down the plywood trail protecting grass, squeezing by truck into clearing.  But couldn't find her; until he gave up and turned around to squeeze back by truck etc. to leave and had to figure out what the red, grisly goop was that was hanging from the chipper output...

i allowed the power of ground zero to flow thru and affect me, and stay with me; purposefully breathed in it's poison deeply; cuz i knew that was the cost of being able to tell y'all!!  So that is my March into Safety story, use that excuse to spark and tune it up again oncet a year.  What the hell!  i purposefully allow this to be maintained inside; to propel to do what i could, that it not have to happen (so often) again. 

Those wide open ceilings in nice homes; the feeling of spatiality can be truly great.  As i visited their fine home though; those open high ceilings only reflected, added to and magnified the helplessness of this lost boy in his own home.  The motherless 7 year old numbly walking around in blank stare, was really deafening even in the stillness, then magnified by the open ceiling's echo.  It haunts me still; and i let it...  Especially how that man clutched this kid shaking and crying uncontrollably; making sounds you should never hear, let alone utter as he did in front row at the funeral.


(Before Picture)



          ~That Early Mourning Job~
   There is an echo of stillness where she last stood for a sec...........;
Now deafening silence roars
louder than the saws;
ears always perched for anyone to start their chipper,
and what would it sound like hear?

Like a vacuum created;
Perhaps by such a young, joyful life,
Disappearing so instantaneously leaving not even a trace here.
Somehow has cheated even time,
That hasn't yet caught up in this place or these people,

Dangerously supplying sling shotting energy,
To journey far from the frail semblance of surviving,
To somewhere far below all too soonly.

Wee waded in and got started this mourn,
Few of us locals, closing ranks;
So Brian wouldn't have to go back there,
To that space, and place.

The scene had just been released,
Including 3 of the vehicles.
All in all, I think ½ dozen tree services where by,
Before the sky's own weeping,
kept building and layering,
Exceeding all others present.

Ya know if ya can't nod at the climber 3 blocks away as you,
Go to your job, and end up aerially compromised;
Who Ya Gonna Call?

My buddy from another tree service

was there in bucket.
There was no better, no less; just well wishes and
Harmonized effort by all able.
Without a word, everything coming into place.

The original 'Help' for the job are stunned to 'help-less',
Especially in this place there seems no aim;
Just their numbing pain as you watch them move nowhere.

Burn this helplessness of loss in well,
As life commands everyone go on forward,
Witness those trying helplessly to reach back;
And remember why this happened,
So that it wouldn't to you,
Or the one next to you!

This price has been high enough;
let it be considered paid in full!

-KC

[rebocardo]

What a horrible thing. Myself, I have never trusted those machines you can fed at ground level with a twelve inch opening just for that reason. She probably got caught and drawn in by a branch.