The Storm Surge

The shrill call of a pileated woodpecker
penetrates the thicket of trees
crowding the forest, as it unerringly
selects a prospect and sturdy chips fly 
when its primitive head and powerful 
beak lay bare the presence of beetle
larvae under the bark of a dying tree.
The battlefield of the sky above
the forest canopy menaces with the
onset of storm clouds shuttering
the brilliant rays of the sun that had
baked treetops just moments earlier
opposed by that golden orb's resistance
frustrated by powerful winds allaying
themselves with aggressively bruised 
clouds bursting with moisture determined 
to once again declare the close of day
its own. It is not dusk that darkens
the forest interior but the swift gloom
overtaking the landscape preparing
for the onslaught that has incrementally
transformed the forest floor from its
tinder-drought stage of depletion where
bracken has succumbed surrendering
to the antidote of parched cracked
earth become a vast acreage of wetland.