The morning gave no warning.

     Sky the colour of a hospital corridor,

     that particular green that means

     nothing good is coming.

     By noon the trees were kneeling.

     I watched an oak bend until it prayed,

     its roots a fist of white threads

     clutching at the darkening air.

     You were in the city. I was here

     where the power lines came down

     like struck snakes, spitting blue,

     where the barn roof lifted whole

     and flew a hundred yards

     before it remembered gravity.

     After, we walked the property

     counting what we'd lost:

     the cherry tree we'd planted

     when we still believed in milestones,

     half the fence, the greenhouse glass

     scattered like someone had been

     throwing handfuls of salt

     at everything we grew.

     But the raspberry canes held on.

     Those thin wrists of green,

     thorned and stubborn,

     had gripped the trellis wire

     and refused to let go.

     You picked one. It was not ripe,

     still white at the top, hard,

     but you put it in your mouth anyway

     and made that face you make –

     the one that tries to turn sour

     into something we can use.

     Now, weeks later, the canes are fruiting.

     I go out at the hour the light turns gold

     and stand among them. The berries

     fall into my palm like small dark hearts.

     I eat them right there, staining

     my fingers, my mouth, letting the seeds

     catch in my teeth. Each one

     has the taste of after –

     of what comes when the wind

     has had its say and moved on,

     when the world you built

     has been inspected and found

     temporary, but the ground remains,

     and the green remains,

     and the small sweet fact of something

     holding on.