Survival [1]

Lightning hit the poplar tree
and blasted it to smithereens.
We cut the stump close to the
ground. It had volunteered
its way into the yard and
survived despite the mower’s
nudges and our disapproval.
But now it was gone and we
piled the logs for burning
as if a victim of the aristocracy
of oaks and maples. But we
were not done with it yet.
Shoots sprouted from the stump
and thin treelets from the roots
pushed up through the grass
around it. And we wondered
if our own instinct would give us
as many chances for survival.