TREES IN WINTER

Trees behave quite differently when wintry winds blow:

now the leaves have dropped, a passable gust must be

sustained enough to force the trees to tremble

through countless twigs and tributary branches –

the chances of bringing even one to its knees

remaining low by any measure or means of calibration.

 

Back in the summer, a breeze sufficed to have the trees

dance a jig or play whirligigs, thick leafage catching

every breath, every tenderness, in every gentle swish and swash

wafted through yews in a shady graveyard or

modest copse crowning a low-slung hill. Today, as we

inch into winter, the game has altogether changed.

 

And the regality of the woods that sit astride

the counting house for passing years hits hard:

there is a stillness there, everywhere I look –

so still that death appears to have stolen the moment

from so many lives (or at least left undersized the

myriad flora June had stretched up to the sky).

 

But reason duly takes hold once more: soft whispers sigh

old ditties that deny death has triumphed at all –

the reverse being true as the tree commands

its seed to recede to earth, now warmer than the air above,

as warm as is needed for the sap of oak and beech

to preserve vigour through winter then, on signals from spring,

 

rise up, feel the host tree quicken, slowly grow swollen –

even if infinitesimally so, for this they were born.

I look at a handful of motionless trees and mumble

a humble understanding of such natural laws;

then focus my eyes on serried trunks and branches

and muse to which other wonders I’ve been totally blind.