Mario Chard
WINDFALL
WINDFALL
and overhead up grew…
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm.
— Paradise Lost
We lived by the rich and thought we were rich.
Mornings we walked by rows of cypresses
and missed their shadows in our gait. We saw
men raise a hundred towers dressed like pines
that never grew. The way we knew a false
pine from the true was how it moved in wind.
At night we heard speakers in the false pines
hum, then cue, but no one spoke. We slept by
each other and thought we slept. In our dreams
the palms were leaning in the wind, straining
to hear. The cypresses confused our gaits.
But each time we woke, the towers shook more
like pines. Their needles grew. Soon all the palms
were signing wind. But no one braced for wind.