The Northwest Arm is calm today.
Now ten months since the Hurricane,
The lot is cleared.

I count a hundred rings of oak 
We split widthwise to make a garden table. 
Here the physical world is almost wholly trees

And water standing calm without a wind,
And morning shows that where we live
Need not outlive us

To be real. I hike out to a back lot near
Sir Sanford Fleming Park. 
Nothing here’s been cleared.

The earth is rent by clumps of roots 
That cling with hopeless instinct to their plot.
Hundreds of trees crisscross the scene

Half-lifted from the dirt.
The shock of all those roots!
The nerve-ended underside of life

So plainly here to die.
The roots should never see the sky.
But how much time is there to clear?