The wind arrives, splintering trees into giant toothpicks, the wood of split trunks left standing, sharp
points jutting upward, pith and cambium pale against dark trunks. Everyone gets the jitters, warning
flags up, supermarket packed—cars circle in the lot, drivers looking for backup lights, waiting for
parked cars to leave. At the checkout lines cashiers have lost that dedicated ebullience promoted by
management—they’re feeling frangible, too—the leer of the beyond facing everyone, wary of trees
bending, breaking, houses smashed, cars caught, streets impassible, littered with what’s left. The
checker in lane three worries about his son walking among the big trees, and the boy, quickened by
wind, delighted by the craziness of trees in it, is stayed by a tree falling, every inch of its 100 years
dedicated to an end as if it were a hereditary right, the scene as crazy as a picture by Ferdinand Léger
(e.g. “The part of Chart”), French painter, 1881-1955.
Poem by Mark Simpson
Image by Adam Strong
Mark Simpson’s work has appeared in a number of magazines. He is the author of Fat Chance (Finishing Line) and The Quieting (Pine Row Press). M Simpson has a Ph.D. in rhetoric and writing and currently farms several acres of forest, fruit, and vegetables. Current residence: Whidbey Island, Washington.
Backwards Trajectory 