If a Tree,

blown down by the wind in the forest
with no person to hear, kills a small gray squirrel
whose flattened body will lie and rot before spring
like the leaves that—once orange—go missing

only to become dirt, while hidden under ice and snow,
who dares to pretend that when the tree fell
there was no thud, as if startling a deer doesn’t
count?  Gathering birds fly south from the forest, are

adverbs of great honesty.  But will they bear witness?
If a tree, felled by wind is still down when the crocus
offer color—yellow and purple—consider how the
mushroom—alive for a only day—was torn, decapitated

by the act, how a sound, un-provable, is more probable
than the likelihood of creation as 7-day wonder.
How little thought for the others.  If, however, a tree,
is the maker of something inexplicable—falling—

are we, perhaps, coming closer to an understanding?
The squirrel, the deer, the mushroom.  Tree in creation.
The leaves.  Humankind, in the fall.  The fall and the winter.
See, we need our birds as modifiers here

with only seven days to get us going.

fisrt published in Blue Fifth Review and later in Paper Snowflakes, available from Southern Hum Press