NVN Wednesday: THE NEWS AT SYCAMORE GAP
by Gus Peterson
Boy, 16, Arrested After Felling of Famous U.K. Tree That Appeared in 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.’ The tree, known as the Sycamore Gap tree, appeared in the 1991 movie 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' starring Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. —People, September 29, 2023
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Minutes after it breaks, the breaking down of it, speculation online— only a trained arborist could have done this, the cut so surgical, the wound so practiced. Only one versed in disassembling the world, only inhuman hands would hold the hungry teeth of a saw so steady, impart such cleanliness to death, here where the empire at last reached its limit, Roman wave thinning over the beach of the world the way a dough’s fabric, rolled again and again, tears. In the end, vandalism. In the end, just another kid. In the end, any surgery a cutting open, off, the inside revealed out, that all too human face leaning in for a look, admiring its handiwork.
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Gus Peterson lives and works in Maine.