Word Count: 215
The old maple is split from the storm. Like a deer hit by a truck it lies sprawled on the lawn, bleeding its leaves into the ground. I don’t know what to do though it reaches its fingers onto the road and I know that I must somehow cut its grasp and its hopes to snare passing cars.
The night has been wicked and loud. The wind howling at windows. Branches cracking off in the distance under the weight of the rain. Thunder roared in a rumbling roll, upset by the turn of the weather, the flash of the lightening. Perhaps it was more frightened than I.
The morning is silent and bright. The street is a tangle of wires and limbs. The neighbors stay inside their doors. But I must go see, must check out, absorb this new world that has changed as we slept. The birches are bent into sheltering tents. The bushes are flattened and spread. The leftover rain clings to the edges, shining like crystal hung in a mad New Year’s Eve party.
This too, shall pass into normal. The normal has changed into the past. I adapt and follow the weather, adjust to each passing storm. To the loss of a maple that welcomed us into this home years ago.
