There are no more leaves on the tree this year

I don’t know what kind 

of tree it is

I looked online and apparently

there’s an app for that.

Last year, the whole winter, some leaves held on

I remember wondering what that was like

for the tree,

its little ones not able to let go

If it liked that or if it was annoyed that

they weren’t doing what they could

to help their mother. To fall to the ground and decompose

to give what they could.

This year there are no more leaves on the tree, 

even in December. I wonder

on this windy day, have there been more storms

more wind and rain, slashing the connections between leaf and twig

even twig and branch

and, in the big storm of the year, when three people died,

branches from the trunk.

There are more storms now

There will be more storms, and stronger storms.

I don’t wonder if that’s ok for the tree; I know it’s not.

But in this one regard

The leaves that can no longer cling

I wonder: is that the easiest part

for the tree, or maybe the hardest?

There are no more leaves on the tree

So it’s easier for me to forget that we’ve had droughts each of the last few summers

Already in June, big previously green swaths of the city beige and tan and brown

I don’t know exactly what kind of storms are coming.

Surely they are.

The little ones will fall fast, I’m afraid.