One Tree

by Philip Metres

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Last updated August 24, 2025

Poem Analysis

Often it is the unexpected thing that starts it off. What’s the it? Well, it can feel like everything. In this case, it’s the tulip tree in the yard. The speaker of the poem is trying to describe the situation between ‘us’ (namely, a couple) and ‘they’ (their neighbours). The neighbours want to cut down a tree that keeps their vegetable patch in the shade. But the offending tree isn’t in the neighbour’s backyard, it’s on the property of the speaker and his wife who loves the tree: ‘It reminds her of her childhood home, a shady place to hide.’ A neighbourly drama threatens to unfold. However, as Philip Metres explores the underbelly of tensions in ‘One Tree’, a domestic drama is sparked too. The communications between the poet and his wife are put under strain and here, we hear the speaker’s internal anxiety: ‘I want to say, it’s not / me, slide out of view behind a wall of cupboards.’ He wants to escape. And what about the tree? It is alive too, and is being cast as a character in conflict with the vegetable patch. Growing things against growing things. Shade where there should be sun. ‘One Tree’ is a prose poem. A prose poem can be understood in many ways, but in this context, I want to look at its shape. The borders to every side of the square are defined, apart from the last three words: ‘the chainsaw again’. The poem presents itself as almost a clear block, like a property map with a little protrusion.
What is happening on this map? There is an argument about events occurring at the borders. Over near one of the frontiers of this square, a tree lives, thrives and provides shade: shade for a woman who finds comfort and reminiscence in its protection; shade to the vegetable patch on the adjoining property. Two types of shade: comfort and reminiscence for one party; the inhibition of sunlight for the vegetable patch. Chainsaw operators have been enlisted to saw off part of the tree and tension erupts between the spouses: ‘Must I fight for my wife’s desire for yellow blooms . . .’. The landscape of this small, squarish block of language becomes the story of the world: ‘two people, one tree, not enough land or light or love’. The everyday experience becomes a window onto countries whose borderlands are disputed.
The speaker seems exhausted: ‘Dear / neighbor, it’s not me.’ He is caught between a certain sympathy for ‘when / my neighbor’s tomatoes will stunt and blight in shade’ and the bonds of love with his wife who remembers a tree as a ‘shady place to hide’. The phrase ‘it’s not me’ has already occurred earlier in the poem – what is this repeated refrain? Avoidance? Certainly, or passing the buck: it’s not me but it is her. Even the breakfast table has turned ‘ominous’ and the daughters of the household are ‘now alone’ in this great fear. The speaker worries that the tension will swallow him, so that rather than engage, he withdraws. This is in total contrast to his wife who ‘in tousled / hair and morning sweat, marches to stop the carnage, mid-limb.’ Their differing responses to the events reveals their inner conflict. Conflicts evolve, and what commenced it can sometimes be forgotten. Is the real tension about a dispute with the neighbour? Yes, but not only – that’s simply a catalyst. Is it the tree? Yes and no. The couple are united in their home and marriage, but within that unity lies the drama of how desire, response, pain and hope manifest.
Though the poem is about opposing needs, it is also about borders, division, and disputed territory; therefore its concern is also political. Philip Metres introduces a liquid alliterative list – ‘land or light or love’ – and declares that there’s not enough of any of them. Is this true? Is that part of the ache of this poem, the hope that there could be more of what nurtures mutual flourishing? The tree has flowered and grown in land, with light, and has been a shade of love. The tree – the ‘One Tree’ of the title – holds story, memory, and love together. Could a vegetable patch be moved? Maybe. Perhaps not, depending on the size of the neighbour’s garden. Is the compromise of an amputated limb an acceptable one? Maybe. Trees survive all kinds of modifications.
The poem creates tension amidst the archetypes evoked: the spouses who have vastly different responses to the neighbours; the children bewildered by the anger erupting between their parents; the poet who wants to resolve, or blame; the fate of the tree; the fate of the vegetables.
That ‘baby brought to Solomon’ is a reference to a story recounted in the Hebrew Bible wherein two people are arguing about the parentage of a baby. Solomon – reputed for his wisdom – suggests that the baby should be split in two in order to resolve the dispute. He knows that the true mother of the baby would sooner give up the child than allow such a thing to happen, and he awards custody accordingly. However, ‘One Tree’ ends without resolution. One of the acts of artistic restraint in Metres’s work is that it doesn’t propose a solution, even though it depicts a speaker clearly desperate for one. Those justified lines are interrupted in the final instance: ‘the chainsaw again’ evoking the question as to whether a machine that divides by brute force is the only option. The rest of the line is blank, like an invitation into the heart of the poem’s tension, to imagine what the couples will do as they face a crisis that threatens to escalate.