Missing eucalyptus

They've cut down the giant eucalyptus tree in my neighbour's garden. A familiar piece of the sky has disappeared. I'm going to miss that tree. I has been my constant companion for the past 23 years and has featured in several poems - mainly because I was generally day dreaming while looking out of the window of my bedrom, where I sometmes write. When it was struck by the evening sun, it was a beautiful haze of shimmering gold and silvery green and it was often a stopping off place for the flock of chattering parakeets that hangs out in the local cemetery. They would rest in the tree on their noisy foraging expedions. The guys who cut it down said they had seen a lot bigger ones. I told them about the wood pidgeon, now homeless, that used to spend most of its time in this improbably tall and handsome specimin of Eucalyptus gunnii. They very kindly cut a section through the trunk as a memento for me – to use as a cheeseboard, they suggested. Well, it's something. Then they drove away in their van. Just another job which they had efficiently and safely performed like removing a tooth. I'll miss my old friend. ‘Count the rings,’ they said. I reckon that there are between forty and fifty – one for each year. The section of trunk still has the damp sappy smell of the spirit that lived in it and will live on in my memory