August 18, 2010

Walking the dogs I saw the burnt-out husk of a lightning-struck tree, gray branches backed up against the sky. It was in the neighborhood, and only ivy snaking up yellow aluminum ramblers gave any green relief. One day out the window I saw a girl on crutches and a bird with a snapped wing. Once I was looking out on a valley in the Black Hills and dead, bleached trees reached out above the green canopy, bent like the arms of old men. Words like gray, bleak and grim are relative. For some of us the site of dead and broken things stands out and their stark surety is easily the opposite of death.

copyright E. Christopher Hayward