[Turner Cassity]

The Switches


We felled the rotting tree before the rains
Because we feared it might crash through a wall
But though the stub is all that since remains,
Neither our home nor we were spared a fall
Of less corporeal timber all around:
The fast collapse of structures at their roots
That’s brought uncounted households to the ground.

I’ve come to clear our stump, and see that shoots
Have made a thin and ill-considered stand
In such a manner, I could think that we—
Hit by a blow for which we hadn’t planned
And severed from a vast, old certainty—

Like these few switches in a rough-cut cleft,
May yet go on to grow from what we’ve left.


Comments:

Is this a tornado or an earthquake? “Corporeal” is technically correct, but is so Latinate that it stands out in the context of the rest of the poem.