A Friend

                 Yet, A Friend

Disgruntled by the muddied horses' hooves,
A branch side-steps through the greening pasture
Where a black stallion,
              Shaking off the doldrums of the night,
        Chases a fretful mare.
A gray gelding disinterestedly snorts at them both
And resumes trudging the muddied banks.

Lethargic, gray wisps of clouds feebly attempt
To hide the morning sun
As it haughtily discards its nightly slumber,
               Announcing itself above the southeastern shore.
And a smile forms the face thinking of a friend...

Yet, a solitary American Elm remains
Having witnessed the passings
               Of the first homestead-
        Now collapsed into a ruin of dirty stone,
        Fungus covered timbers and shattered glass.
But a friend remains.

From its branches, a red-shouldered hawk
               Spies a field mouse...
       But becomes disinterested as it scans
       The heavens over the waters
Where clouds present themselves as ugly, bulbous
               Misshapen heaps of lead and bloated bellies.
Quickly losing interest,  the hawk flees north
Into the fleeting wisps of clouds.

The lob lolly pines that flirt with the western fence
Begin their twisting dance with the wind.
But a friend remains.

To herald its august coming,
Horrific hurricane winds shred
The elms and the hickories
And absent of thought,
Snap the lob lolly pines.
Yet, a friend remains...

The paralyzing howl of the wind
Rips the voices from the ears
Leaving only faces frozen in fear;
And though the homes and the barns
Are cast as chaff before the relentless storm,
Yet, a friend remains...

The rain drives into the flesh
As a runaway freight train
Into a semi truck at a crossing;
And each is seemingly left
             To what remains of himself.
Yet, a friend remains...

And when the silence arrays itself,
            Even as death,
Leaving life no longer as it was...

Yet,
Remains
A
Friend...