Fallen

The roar of the wind through the trees outside sounded like an express train going through a station.
I sat at my desk and watched the big old tree outside my window bend with the gusts, and minutes after wondering if it ever stood at that slight angle, another brutal gust caught it and it fell slowly towards the house, hitting the ground with a mighty thump and missing us by 3 feet.

I find it sad to see a mighty tree like this felled. I imagine what it's lived through in all the years it's stood guarding the old Royal Infirmary; giving shelter to birds and squirrels, while patients in the medical wards looked out onto it's foliage, escaping the reality of hospital life for a while.

The men with power saws and headphones will come soon and hack off the branches with the leaf buds which will no longer open, compost them to dust, saw the trunk into manageable logs to be transported away in trucks and the view from my window will have changed forever.

This is nature ensuring the survival of the fittest.