Heavy Metal, Heavy Tree

Metallica’s “Blackened”
is playing: loud, loud…Then
the tree breaks out back,
louder even than that.

Half of a two hundred year old oak
comes down
across the whole yard
with snow-weighted limbs,
tears out cables,
and only gently grazes the house.

Barefoot in the wet
checking for damage,
and
other than the tree itself,
there’s none.  The power
has even stayed on.

Back into “Blackened”
once back inside.

“Callous frigid chill?”
Only outside.  Life doesn’t always
imitate art.  In here it’s warm,
blistering almost.  I lower the heat

and return to the music
of promised disaster.