kagablog

They all arrived singing and smoking corn pipes and cussing. They had
come in droves to cut the big cedar tree down in back. The night
before found me pissing over the pale in the other room, the floor
cracking in the wake of my footsteps. In the dark, the pail shimmered
and made loud sounds as my piss swooshed and settled.

The night time noises rose in my ears as the snoring of my granpa and granma
increased with every retreating step back to my bed..

Later that night i was to be awakened to a loud thump, a crashing
sound and a scream. As it turned out my brother went straight through
the floor while pissing, landing square into the nest of our dog and
her new puppies.
You could hear them squealing and the dog barking at my half naked brother,
with his pants still at his ankles.he had gone through the termite eaten floor.
underbreath granpa cussed and said that tomorrow he would have to
cut down the cedar tree to make new floor planks for the backroom.

Daybreak and the dogs barking loud is made even louder by the workmen
singing and surrounding the tree with ropes and large giant saws.
They measured and made lines on the trunk and went back and forth to the kitchen
to get chocolate tea.

The sun slowly came up over the gully and the men spat and laughed and
pointed..
one even found a puppy crushed under some wood. Sunken skull and eyes bulging ..
“poor ting they said,”him didnt know what hit him”

I stood above the crushed floor,looking through a big hole .. watching
them manouvre the broken ox stained floor planks to the kitchen for
fire wood.Granma cussed too, said she knew it was coming but didnt
realize it was so soon.

It was festive and lively in the yard. unlike the other time when my
aunt had died and we had to cut down another tree and spent the day
singing death songs, the men drinking rum and sawing back and forth
till the tree collapsed in the gully rolling like thunder to the foot
of the hill.
Today though, there were children watching and shouting and asking
what was the rush and what was i doing there amidst so many large saws.
The saws were big,with large teeth.It took three men on each side to
lay it down and another three to hold it and push and pull at the root
of the cedar tree.
The other dogs barked and growled at the men, they were annoyed by
their presence.
mosquitoes gathered at their ears and the fire flies fluttered about.
The hens clucked in their nested canopies. I laughed and pointed at the flames
in the kitchen rising from the sweet smelling cedar wood.
Cooking food for the men’s lunch and dinner.

On the otherside by the grave yard, the woodpeckers drilled holes in
the pimento tree.
The other birds swooped down to feed on ripe jack fruits fallen and
being dragged off by red ants..

In the gully the hummingbirds floated in midair around banana
blossoms and in the distance other dogs howled and howled away
occupied by the loud sounds of men singing and sawing.

In the kitchen granma was singing some hym and talking to herself
whilst pushing the broken wood under the dutchie pot.. of food.. She
said it was going to be a long long week, “far dem haf fi cut de tree
down and den the wood haf fi dry and den treated and before it go inna
de house fi de floor.”
she said then de floor haf fi, den be cleaned and then dyed an stained.

She looked at me and said,”ahh mi pickni mi glad dat it was not you,
dat went through de floor, far if it was you, so frail, we might have
been making a coffin and dat we dont want fi do..

I laughed nervously eyeing my brother watching them and holding his
back and staring on at the yonder grave yard full of birds and
insects.

The day would pass with the men doing their best to move fast cutting
through the trunk of the tree.
Granpa was at the head counting and pushing back and forth,the saw
making swooshing sounds as flecks of wood fell onto the ground.

When the tree fell it was loud and rumbling. The men had attached
ropes to it,it snapped right into place for them to hoist it above the
ground.They built a platform around the root, raising the fallen
tree, like a carcass far above the ground. It reminded me of the time
i saw tem all bury the bloated cow years before..
My cousin explained that after sawing down the tree, that they would
then cut the cedar in slices to make planks. some would be stored for
making coffins and others would be stored
for building roofs and walls. the cedar had a sweet smell.

I Iingered long enough to take long wiffs of the shavings on the
ground and in the air.. granma laughed watching me running about
smelling and smelling again the dust.
By the weekend, the whole thing had been done. there was a big hole
where the root of the tree was. there was a hole in one of our
bedrooms where the floor was. There was sawdust everywhere and the
smell of cedar filling the air. There was the platform where the
remaining piece of wood was left to be sliced up.
I was still astonished as to how quickly the tree was brought down
and how quickly granpa had cut the wood into floor planks.
Granma kept telling me that it was normal to use our own tree and our
own wood for the house and that we have been doing it for generations.

My own memory of the whole thing was filled with joy and anxiety at
seeing my brother fall through the floor and hearing the dogs yelping
so loudly.
Our house on the edge of the gully was again built anew and our own
bedroom would later have new floor planks our own memory of it all
would pass and our own tree would be replaced by other roots growing
from the soil.