You didn't hear it in the night.
The wind moaned like a wounded soldier,
long past any help at all.
Fingers of rain slashed futilely
at the windows, rattling the pebbled glass.
The darkness sucked in its breath
and its heart pulsed, growing stronger
as branches grasped at power lines
and jerked them to the ground,
lights failing in house after house.
The roof began to leak, a steady heartbeat.
Hunkered down near the fitful wood fire,
you tried to read by lamplight,
but your glance kept wandering
to the black eye of the window,
your ears reaching for the crack
of bough, the crush of trunk.
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