A storm came last month
Frightful winds and torrents
of tumultuous Weather
round and down

Beating on house,
on covering, on
Leaf and Limb.
Shuddering the walls
and singing a nightmare
lullaby to thready sleep.

When I woke, I went outside.
to take stock.
Sit. Look
at the damage.

And I saw a tree limb off.
Greedy ham hands
grabbed and wrenched
with windy stringy muscles
and huffing tendons and
tore it asunder.

Sap oozed out
of the rent trunk
as the tree wept
in pain and screamed
in sticky inarticulate
pitches.

I had to let it weep…
maybe it would heal
If it could harden
over and miss,
remember the limb
lost in the storm.

But perhaps it wouldnt.
The tree has not decided…today.
Still soft…but not sticky.
Still weeping, but not flowing.
But always missing,
remembering its wasness
on the way to its is-ness.

I saw a woman walk by…
she had been in a storm
and was cousin to my tree.