Better Late Than Never OR Reactive

by Pat Laster

(a cinquain sequence written as it was happening in my front yard; revised later; published here January 4, 2013.)

One week
after the ice
and enormous amounts
of snow that took down power lines
and poles

and left
thousands with no
electricity, a
tree service stops. My sassafras
roadside

grove--small
but spraddledy--
gets sawed, topped out. And then,
oblivious of new, four-inch
foliage

of spring
bulbs, the worker
tromps, pushing the cut limbs
with his humongous, booted feet,
heavy

body.
Why didn't they
do all this way before
last week's long, traumatic event?
Huh? Why?

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