Rick Leddy

If A Tree Falls...

Got knocked out by gravity 

The obedient tree limb followed the rules 

Greeted me with a fast and furious fuck you to the head

But I wasn’t thinking of the ineffable 

laws of physics

Or the spooky entanglement of the quantum realm

Or whether God plays dice

The dead branch just dropped with Calvinistic fervor, rushing downward, leaving a muffled dent in my head 

It was a dizzy barbed wire surprise party

Thrown by a shady serial killer 

I could have ruminated about

the perfection of it

Marveled at the astounding confluence of time and place that brought the limb to my

head and my knees to the earth

If a tree kills you in the forest

And nobody is there to see it

Have you died at all?

Is dying alone, then

the secret to immortality?

But enlightenment is for apocryphal apples

So, all I muttered was:

Shit

Like a bad Zappa lyric

I got sucker punched by a tree

Was left crawling on my knees

Fate or accident doesn’t matter

The limb could have been

Bigger

Heavier

Entirely more fatal

But it wasn’t

This was just a love tap

A skull lullaby 

A not-so-gentle reminder

That we are all standing under trees

Waiting

For the final limb 

to fall

The Fall

I breathed in the California Dream

When I was a kid

It smelled of lead, ozone

and hidden, greyed valleys

It ran to the sea

All hot metal and burning rubber

My lungs seared and sacrificed 

Burnt on the altar of mobility 

We spread far and wide

Wandered into canyons and hillsides

Stayed in the mountains and forests

Built homes nestled in dangerous beauty

The sun apocalyptic 

Winking angry red into the Pacific

I breathed in the future

And it stung with each short inhalation

I watch ash gather on windshields 

Butterfly ghosts, white and brittle

Floating, caught on the wind

Each a missed opportunity 

Now refugees fleeing the promise of golden tomorrows

I breathe in the California Dream

And it smells of wails and burnt offerings

I inhale the rust-tarnished sky

The pain still deep in my lungs

And I remember when it all began

When I was a kid

As the angry red sun

Falls into the unforgiving sea