A YEAR OF SAP AND BRANCHES

WHISPERS FROM INSIDE THE TRUNK

Trees spark verse in every season
Of careful diction, rhyme and reason

Assonance, alliteration
Double entendre, personification

But craft is trumped by the timeless art
Of listening well with an open heart

 

A SAPLING IN SPRING

The thin dark trunk
And its skinny offshoots
Rise up from Mother Earth
Responding to the warmth of the fiery ball above
With tiny bumps the shade of brick
That will slowly erupt
Into the emerald foliage of spring

 

WHITE WILLOW IN HEAT

Her leafy canopy does not weep.
She is content to simply be
herself, haphazard and unique.

Her silver-white petticoat shimmies
beneath a modest skirt of green;
she dances, horizontal, in the breeze.

A wanton and cunning daredevil, she
waves teasing hands toward overhead wires,
and dangles deft feet above bonfires.

Brazen and wild and free,
her confident spirit knows no fear.
She does as she pleases.

 

THE “RED FLU” COMETH

A autumnal pandemic seizes maples unaware
Dotting them in random crimson hives
Neither the elderly nor the young are immune

The blotches take hold and expand and join hands
Until every branch shivers and burns in full fever
Copses aflame, tortured and crying for mercy

Nature’s tonic rides in on a bitter wind
Smiting ravaged leaves and tossing them to the ground
Branches emerge cleansed, but bare and frail

Facing the hardest but most crucial part of healing
Resting quietly, regaining strength
Tucked, until spring, beneath a blanket of white

 

NOVEMBER PINES

Seven firs gather
around a park bench
A stand of weary backs
and creaking knees
and aching feet
Too hard-nosed to sit

Branches droop
Boughs hang heavy
Like green icicles
that have beaten
Winter’s crystal ones
To the punch

The pines press on
Squaring their shoulders
Warding off winds
Boarding birds
Discharging their duties
Refusing respite

Stoic evergreens
Snub both praise and pity
And bid me farewell
Then brood and blather
On which is finer
Sainthood or martyrdom