All night, the great tree raged outside our windows.
It wanted to give way to the wind, but could not.
It wanted to fly over the hill on the wind’s crest
lashing our house as it passed,
smashing the roof, bursting each window.
What agony to be pinned like this, bound by the feet,
earth-bound by tendon, tendril, a century
of rooting down. An owl sounded just before dawn,
quavery, tentative. From far distance
came answer, quietly. Then stillness and first light.
Rogan Wolf