Before the Storm
Hawk swings high. Smaller birds shelter
from winds too loud for song.
Oak and maple speak leaf on leaf
as groundwater lifts through xylem straws.
Call the winter wren a refugee,
house abandoned after the squirrel raid,
yard absent its flute note. And we,
enclosed in skin as trees are bark
our years circling within, grow angled
reaching toward sun.
The ash has lost limbs prepared for
what's coming. Hacked,
more trunk than branch, call her survivor.
A downy inspects cuts the color of
Louisville sluggers. Taps and claws up
grooved bark fitted like chain mail.
No name for what happens next--
after the whine of blade stops, last length
of wood ground, truck rolled away.
Birds without their ash bough perch
brave the window feeder. Flutter at the pane,
titmice, chattering finches and
one ruby-throated hummer.
Protesting, they blast by. Compass lost,
confused, gather on the dead pine—
bare-boned roost. And the din dies down.
Call the birds early adapters, ash a planet
visited by the woodpecker whose head tilts
as if questioning. The dead pine,
a choir riser, holds a smattering of species
singing. A bird chorus for the new world.
Author: Rhett Watts
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