Derecho, Labor Day 1998

As far as I’m concerned,    when I left the room          you took your last
breath,       not four hours later   like the nurse     and the other woman
said.     Outside   the sun shined   its violence on us   and in its oven
a storm cooked   over Ontario.   A few days later we woke at midnight    
to daylight and winds   out of the west    at eighty miles an hour. Most
of the trees that fell   were older than you.    Some were not.  All night
the air detonated    with thunder so hard      the strings of my guitars rang
with sympathetic vibration.   AM radio      kept warning us   of what
had already happened.   The next week spent                in the absence
of electricity,   all too aware      of the quiet.    In a year    I’ll scatter        
your ashes        in Ontario           where that storm was born.