On the seventh of May,
A bolt of lightning struck,
My birthday, a tree at
The edge of our property.
A harbinger: though like
Such signs are, usually,
Unclear just what it meant.
The scar it left too deep,
A summer passed, then two,
And then the lightning killed.
The tree now stands abrupt
And white against the sky,
Keeping secrets for the
Creatures that it keeps and
Remembering the day
The sudden lightning struck
Its heavy verdant limbs.
If prophesy, it’s yet
To be fulfilled, unless
It’s of that kind which day
By sly day comes to pass:
The lightning death—the tree
The living—the sky the
Charged happening between.