It came down
in a storm one night.
No one saw,
heard or cared,
except for the others.

As they said, it was notched,
pulled like a bow, groaning at
its unsustainable angle
when the release happened and the snap
snapped it up at the roots.

As they watched it, just laying there
for a while,
may be feeling itself out?
May be testing its limbs?
How many branches were broken?

As they leaned in,
it found itself wanting,
like a fish
flubbing on dry land,
nothing more could sustain it.

As they grew, time, wind, rain
and sun punished
and dried its corpse,
sucking out the juices, vampiric,
until it was no better than driftwood.

But the others, they leaned in more,
and in their way they bowed,
they felt it out, and wanted,
sustaining that feeling that bettered them,
seeing, hearing, holding, right to their root.