Wake For An Alder Tree

Last night the Alder so deeply rooted in the hedgerow was shot through by a bolt of climatic vulnerability. I heard the smoking gun, heard the clangorous salvo, the snap and break, heard the unflexed crook of it pivot and shear, timber dislocate, break, and crumble. There was a fibrous unclasping, then the unfolding thunder of impact. This morning, thigh deep in its wreckage, maneuvering through the downed foliage, the strew of crumbled catkins, I listen to its death throes of leafage curling into whorl and lacuna, the rustling whispers of a dwindling aftershock. Splinters and twigs tremble, lumber creaks on as a sotto voce rattle of demise as if the tree was still collapsing beneath its fall, as if this murmuring requiem were a way to explain what the moment did.