During the deluge,
lightning smacked loud
and hard. Rain dropped
like millions of dimes.
A rotted old pine trunk
toppled like a church steeple,
splitting and splintering
like firewood as it struck
the drenched grass.

In the calm after the storm
we ran out our screened porch
to screeches of newborn
woodpeckers, three of them
teetering like drunks on the ground
trying to stagger home.
Shadows of parents, one vivid,
one dull, crosshatched above.

We picked them up
with the care of building
a tall house of cards,
placing them on a square
of carpet we had fitted
to the base of a plant hanger,
which we hung onto
a branch of what was left
of the bark-stripped tree.

Back inside, we looked
out through the blinds
of my bedroom window
as panicked mom squawked,
perceiving a trick, a trap,
urging the children to struggle
out of the makeshift shelter.
So they flapped their feather-
less wings and plopped

to the still-soaked lawn one-
by-one like discarded half-eaten
chicken bones. Backyard cats
pounced from out of wedelia
as if from slingshots, ambushing
and taking their mere morsels,
appetizers, into delicate jaws,
then vanishing before our eyes.
Two birds flew off into blue skies.