Felled By The Wind

Over there, three hundred people felled
by a series of catastrophic tornadoes,
ripping through five States of the Union.
Here, a ferociously bellicose windstorm
blasts like a renegade locomotive
through the masts of the forest,
canopy yet absent, to shatter the
upper storey, bringing down a bristling
mass of boughs, branches and
last year's dessicated leafage.

The atmosphere is redolent of the
promise of fresh green shoots. Tiny
red blossoms blow off maples and the
first of the spring-hesitant trilliums have
finally thrust through the rain-saturated
forest soil. The sky is by turns a vast
sheet of blue where the sun's intensity
bakes the air, then suddenly sullen winds
whip up a froth of dark clouds unleashing
another deluge of biblical proportions.

Beyond lies a wind-felled carcase, a
familiar giant pine, that only yesterday
stood aloofly ancient, the forest sentinel.
Now it is a snag, sitting forlornly on the
forest floor, a great white sliver reaching
imploringly to the sky; the tree's huge body
horizontal now, limbs raising the trunk
off the ground, needles bright green,
indignant at this betrayal, its sudden demise.