Time like locusts, my house like after thieves

While I
naked from sleep
warmed by an unexpected
benificent, empty hour
this morning waited, hopeful

like some other tree
when a redwood falls in the forest
and there's a pouring-in of light,

locusts darkened my house
swarming through the windows
onto every surface

and, shocked
I leapt up to sweep them from my desk
but they returned thickly

and I knew it was over
knew only when nothing alive
was left in the house
would they go, that if I let them
strip it all away

if I sat as if dead, as if not caring
whether there was sun
I could start again, perhaps

after a while
from floorboards, from the gloom
of the forest floor.