April. Good riddance, you miserable El Nino-sucking record buster.

You came in like a lion and you left like one, too. You fooled us arriving and you made us look like fools leaving.

Go away and don’t come back.

Don’t you know when enough is enough? Didn’t anyone teach you that excess is a sin? Can’t you put yourself in a farmer’s boots for once and see what misery you are creating?

I can put up with mud. I can put up with rotting, bug-molested, weed-infested crops. I can even put up with smashed green houses and broken windows.

What I cannot stomach is your excessive force, your over-the-top ambition to get in the record books

.

Listen, I agree that we humans need to be put in our place. So you beat us down and we were humbled. And thankful, too — that you didn’t make us hurt so bad we turned against you for good.

But why this destruction on top of destruction? In the dark, quiet hours before dawn, no less, scaring the living snot out of everything that breathes.

The dogs jumped into the bed. The horses and goats ran into the woods. And the pigs — even they are sick of you mudslinging messes. They hunkered down on the back side of that ancient Pecan, hid behind the massive girth of the mother tree, the reigning Queen of Wilbarger Bend.

And what did you do? You blew and you blew and you blew until the beautiful thing fell down.

There were so many other trees to choose from, some already maimed, some hollow to the core. But no, you set your sights on this most magnificent  specimen. Buffalo once grazed beneath it. Comanches rested in its shade. Generations of farmers reflected on its perfect symmetry, awed that something so grand could spring up from something so small.

The Queen gave this farmer strength and courage. She had endured  all, had withstood what other Aprils threw at her — freeze, drought, flood, wind. But not you with your El Nino excess. First you spilled a foot of water on the floor and then you body slammed her from behind, in the dark, while we slept.

The Queen fell at 5 a.m. on the last day of the cruelest month.

And you ran, like a coward, tearing up the rest of the farm on the way out.

 

April, cruel April, you are gone.

And soon forgotten.

Not our Queen.

Long live the Queen.