The Oak

                 "For the free-moving life of the animal is struggle,
                 and nothing but struggle, and it is the tactics of its 
                 living..."
                                                 Oswald Spengler (tr. Atkinson)

Out the blue under azure sky
the three hundred year old oak,
still green comrade of ten years,
exploded at the trunk.

Time and breath ceased.

A body eased a few feet left.

Leaves caressed black boots
standing rock fast.

There was no fear.

There were regrets who was so old

and living still had gone at last.

It takes three weeks
to cut up the cadaver.

Ants.

And a threshold half
a century in the making.

E. A. Costa 3 May, 2015 San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua