After the Storm

The rain decided
To burst through the veil
Distilled essence of ocean
Leaving low black sluices
And waves of condensed, long-repressed scent

A honey mesquite
Pulled from its roots,
Its trunk shaped savagely
To grow admirably,
Now bereft of life except as firewood.

I go to console it as it leaves,
To grieve nature's reckoning;
I shake the droplets off the branch
And the stillness cracks
As a nested bird leaves like a vacuum.