Assessing the Storm

The rain is converting to snow and flying sideways. Wind has flattened my tired old iris stands on the incline out back. They look like piles of off-color, melting swords. This kind of weather speaks a language the robins and vesper sparrows don’t understand, so they hide in pine whorls that bob up and down when shouldered by brawny gusts.

I know better: you can’t trust your life to a pine tree.

And it’s not the wind and water that wears you down, it’s the carried detritus, the salts, and the overthinking.

—Mitchell Hegman