Greetings, readers! Happy news: one of my poems was just published in the October 2025 issue of The Florida Writer, the official magazine of Florida Writers Association, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit.
Enjoy!
Fallen
by Charlene L. Edge
A tree branch hanging over our roof exploded, scatter-shot pieces across the lawn,
shortening years of tree-life in less than one ghastly second.
We were in the house. A thunderclap pitched me off the bed.
The tree came down last Tuesday after growing up two hundred years.
Sweaty men in swirls of sawdust-rain chain-sawed the thing to death,
death accelerated by lightning sizzling branches and conjoined trunks.
Later in the yard, I found wood-shrapnel—charcoal edges told the story.
I carried some to the bin. Heavy, so heavy, the fallen were.
What remains—an elephant-size girth of stump, insides open to the sun.
Innumerable rings evidence long age, the tree’s protective shade and more
than twenty years of fright. In 2004 alone:
Charley roared through here at 95 miles per hour. Ripped countless trees from the earth.
Weeks later, Frances and Jeanne shredded even more.
When we could not flee we curled on the floor close to the bed, or in the tub, or in the
closet—we held each other, we begged the tree above to hold itself together.
BIO
Charlene Edge is an award-winning poet and author of Undertow, her cult memoir. charleneedge.com.
Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Linda M Goddard
Oh Charlene,
A heartfelt and poignant poem. So lovely-
Thank you for sharing “Fallen” with all of your readers!
And congratulations on its publication 👏👏
Charlene L. Edge
Thank you, Linda!
Kathleen Brandt
Congrats, Charlene! Well done you!
Charlene
I appreciate that!