what was left...


I stood in what once was an old wood
next to what was left of an old home

Southern Red Oak dead
and broken 
into a figure 8 almost

silent towering 
Sweetgum
splintered & tossed about

Broken fingers, 
and back 
of the world
twisted around

family photographs 
strewn along 
the path of destruction

What method determined
which ones were chosen?

“That's a sound my son
will never forget,” he said .
Crawling in the mud
beneath the old oaks
and massive pines

lying prostrate 
bowing before
the power of the storm

Their trunks trembling
with every roar of thunder

the rain incessant
and appearing crystallized
frozen in time and sky

with every violent
white-hot flash
of electricity 

His many  
dogs baying,
howling,
barking

knowing instinctively
that this is a primordial
force,

this is not a force
made by God-

this is God itself
if God exists.

He said, “They say thank God,
well I myself don’t have too much to say to him.”
He looked around at
his ruined
personal
possessions

Wiped his eyes,
lifted his chainsaw
to start again.


2 comments:

  1. the irony of lifting the chainsaw first, imparting a little of his own destruction, before beginning again. i can't imagine. i can't. not in this way.

    (i'm sorry for your uncle's losses and for his neighbor.)))

    xo
    erin

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  2. thank You.
    Maybe there has to be that destruction before the new beginning.

    If there were no endings there could be no beginnings.

    if there can be no beauty without pain,
    well i'd rather never even see beauty again

    ReplyDelete