Field Trip

The girls suffer the cider press demonstration,
the adornment of milk carton bird feeders
sheltered from the day’s regrettable rain.
But what they really want
is to find the lightning-struck tree
that toppled in the storm, roots exposed
like a wall of guts. Released, they race
the trails, seeking only that spot
where something electric shot from the sky,
ignited a tree from within and made it special.
Here they demand their picture be taken,
all in one fierce group–hair stringy and wet,
front teeth missing or dangling by threads,
arms flung across shoulders like so many rugby players
sharing a pint after a good scrum.
And there in the foreground
are the umbrellas we had pressed into the girls’ hands,
upended, metal blades exposed to sky,
not to fend off the storm
but to claim as much of it as they can.