From my usual spot on the side porch, my view is obscured by the many neighborhood trees, their branches overlapping like layers of lace. Or, rather, the trees are the view—and I don’t mind. The magnolia, pale, with its pert, fuzzy buds. The Japanese maple, gnarled and mossy. Then our proud sycamore, stretching high above all the others.

They cut down a tree across the alley yesterday—two trees, actually. Black walnut. It was an agonizing decision for the people who live there, to cut down those ancient things. It must have seemed presumptuous to make such a choice when they only exist as a blip in the trees’ history.

But then, the walnuts grow large and fall heavy. Children play in that yard, and what an unwelcome thunk it would be if one dropped on a tiny head. Then the walnuts rot on the ground, and when their dog, Arlo, gets into them (he’s a digger), his shaggy white fur turns purple. I see their point, but I still think that’s pretty punk rock for a dog.

If you process black walnut shells with…xantham gum, maybe? you can make ink. I always meant to gather some up and try it, but I never did. They mean to plant new trees soon—tall, native ones that won’t injure their children or stain their dog. It won’t be the same, but it’s something. I appreciate it.

Yesterday, as the cranes and cherry pickers swarmed in the air like insects, delicately amputating branches which were then fed to a hungry chipper, I grew so afraid. I watched the process through the lacy branches of the trees in my yard, and suddenly they seemed so old, so fragile. The Japanese maple is already held up by wires; the sycamore is likely over two centuries old. We are a blip in their long history, and I want them to outlast our time here.

I’m not sure why it’s so important to me; maybe the trees make me feel protected—a natural fortress around my small retreat. The locust that taps on the spare room windows, the hemlocks that line the fence in a dense huddle, the blue spruce that reaches toward me beseechingly from the sidewalk. The magnolia. The maple. The sycamore.