boom; then shortwave crackling
yanks me from sleep.
me: what was that?
him: sounds like a tree falling,
but now it’s stopped.
the rain fall is steady,
morning light nonchalant;
from my bedroom window i look out, try to make sense of the tangle
of branches backed by earth instead of sky,
laced not vertically, but horizontally.
our ancient beech half-fallen, half-standing rift
scarred char and splintered sapwood.
lightning strike sends a message,
little miss reader-of-too-much-into-things,
or is arbitrary,
doubter-of-any-eye-on-the-sparrow;
but i take comfort in my wise friend’s view:
meaningful as a matter not of specific place,
but of my own intention;
grace as sudden,
and now, everywhere.