Wednesday, July 25, 2012

“Did Lightning Hit This Tree?”




Regionally, ComEd spokesman John Schoen said, more than 300,000 customers had lost power at one point, including more than 40,000 in the South Region.

“It wasn’t a long event, but it was a powerful event,” Schoen said. “The high winds and lightning strikes caused a lot of damage.”

Airlines cancelled at least 100 flights at O’Hare, and delays of up to 45 minutes were reported at Midway on Tuesday morning.

The power was out all day at the village hall in Homewood, as well.







Oh but it’s hard to live by the rules
I never could and still never do
Rules and such never bothered you
You call the shots and they follow


“Talk of the Town”
Chrissie Hynde





I place my hand against the inside of the tree.

The tree is ripped in half, torn straight down the middle.

Half of the tree is in the street. The other half
somehow is upright, taller than a nearby house.

I place my hand against the inside of the tree.

“Are you trying to take its pulse?” a woman asks.

I say, “Was it wind? Or did lightning hit this tree?”

“I think it was only the wind,” the woman says.
“We were just over there in our back yard. The wind
had the tree bent in half, scraping against the street.
I looked away. So I didn’t see it happen.
When I looked back the tree was split, half in the street,
half standing up, still waving around in the wind.”

My hand is on a spot where the wood is pure black
and rock hard, not fibrous and shredded like the rest.

I say, “It looks like lightning hit where the wood’s black.”

“I think it was only the wind,” the woman says.

Her husband points at a house. “The guy that lives there,
he and his family are at Disney World right now.”
He points at the tree in the street. “When that guy’s home,
he parks right there. This thing could have been so much worse.”

I am wondering if lightning had hit the tree.

My hand is still flat against the black patch of wood.

Am I touching, I wonder, a spot where lightning
had come down out of the sky and destroyed the tree?


“The winds were eighty miles an hour,” the woman says.

“The guy parks right there when he’s home,” her husband says.

The tree is ripped in half, torn straight down the middle.

I say, “It looks like lightning hit where the wood’s black.”

“I think it was only the wind,” the woman says.

I’m touching the wood. But she was there when it split.









Maybe tomorrow
Maybe someday
You’ve changed
Your place in this world


“Talk of the Town”
Chrissie Hynde








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The Iceberg Addendum: Atlantis Iceberg


























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