All the cities went dark, downed trees
cradling parked cars, water pulling
the bridge down to closure.

Lightless, the contours
of the highways grew foreign
and foreboding,

charting black channels
through the island’s core.

But now, this dawn comes
like nothing,

sprightly birds assess
the state of the canopy,

a full ten degrees colder,
smoke tints the air,
all wholesome except

for the limbs that broke
but didn’t fall, the widow
-makers,

the swords of Damocles
holding on for now,

the fresh-snapped pith white
as in white-hot, as in warning,

as in inaction is not
the antithesis of danger–
it is just a prelude of variable length.