The Hemlock Hedge at Art Valli’s property causes me a little bit of strife. But I get hung up on aesthetic, that’s the thing. The curtain of the hedge is sheared, to a point within reach. Then the shape flares wider near the top and escapes formalism. The side profile resembles a light bulb. The screening is patchy and riddled with adelgid. The hedge has plenty of room to grow on the south side, in Art’s yard. But on the north side, the stems are too close to the property line. They back up against a patchwork of chain link and wooden fencing. Most of the north side curtain is hacked off-again, within reach-due to encroachment. Sharp coronets remain. There are tufts of sprouts along the north edge, a green crown, and, like jewels, there is a nest in almost every one of these tufts on the far eastern side of the hedge. Oak leaves, strings, pieces of plastic wrapper and bags, and bits of old pruning clippings insulate the walls. Chickadees flutter all around me as I labor in the small stems. I can hear their wing beats. Squirrels launch into the neighboring Maple, and then skip across the adjacent Blue Atlas Cedars. The objective is to reduce the epicormic growth that has been neglected on this eastern stretch of the hedge under the Crimson King Maple. The rogue spires are five feet higher than the rest of the hedge. They have escaped the saw and the shear, because there is no easy access. This small task is daunting. “It will never look right,” I think. The northeast corner of the hedge is landlocked here by three neighboring properties, just on the other side of the fence, but a block or two away as streets and sidewalks go. Ramshackle storage sheds butt up close to the fence and restrict the use of a ladder. The middle and lower canopy of the hedge is a collection of dead wood. Whole stems are dead. The top of the hedge was severed long ago. As I struggle along the top to gain access to some working positions, I’m worried that if I slip from the slings I’m standing in I might get impaled. A chickadee stares at me, unsurprised. Green growth creeps in from each side, and I clip it and saw awkwardly, casting debris over the edge. Raking up, I noticed a dead squirrel laying in the leaves under the hedge. Talking with Art and Emily, a Cooper’s Hawk floats into the yard and lights on a low branch of the Maple. Her attention is on the hedge, where life and death tangles. Her sharp eyes know about the nests, and the chickadees, and the squirrel in the leaves. She pays little attention to us talking, and little attention to formality. What wild joy.