And the Grand Oak Stands

The scorched chimney stood tall and defiant against the blue sky

Of the cool September morning

Perched among the blackened rubble of my cherished youth

The smell of a campfire assailed my senses

Forcing me to resolve the past with what now surrounded me.

The burned remains of an antique dresser

Once a monument to my vanity, now, nothing more than a shadow

Of my past self...

Countless times I'd wished for, begged for my childhood to be erased

Blotted out tenderly with Kleenex tissues in the dark nights where I waited

Thinking, “please don’t come, please don’t come.”

But he came anyway...

This new devastation was not in my plan. Not dreamed of or imagined.

Not this violent fiery death that licked its way from one room to another

Erasing my past, my story,

Evidence of that secret life.

The lemon tree—left scorched and dead, withering, it seemed, in defeat

While the giant oak trees, with their prickly leaves, stood grand and tall—

Watching.

Silent observers throughout the years, they remained

Granting the only thing they could—

the smallest whisper of a memory

I used to make fingernails with those leaves—painting them bright red

With the nail polish my mother gave me.

It was their peace offering, spilling out from the branches above—

falling like snowflakes into my hands.