surely it knew    watching    that
flames engorged are not flames satiated    and

as orange heat groped at branches,
it must have strained to uproot itself    to
desert the shady office it had held so long

but the roots held fast
and the tree   once as vital as the house and life
that cooled beneath it   took the fire into its arms
and died

now
the roots that held so stubbornly through the fire
brace a blackened trunk,
its grotesque shade wasted

   upon the sterile ground