Tree Trimmer

I woke this morning to star songs

shimmering outside my window like prayers,

the tree trimmer’s blade freeing them

from my neighbor’s oak felled in last week’s storm.

For a century she has been gathering them

in her outstretched branches,

storing them nightly in concentric rings,

hidden like dreams.

I sit up in bed and watch as the tree trimmer

pauses, shifts his weight, wipes his brow.

Then he again cuts deep into her core,

her secrets rising in the morning light.

I wonder if he knows

he sparkles with stardust.