Triptych: A Tree in Three Seasons

I.

Atop a hill there is a weathered oak

whose listless limbs spread so wide it seems

to hang by them and not to stand.  It’s bark

is scarred by whips of wind, by scratching beasts,

by birds that pierce its trunk with beaks.  When fall

arrives, a crimson stain spreads to all

the leaves.  They slowly trickle down beneath

a blanching sky, and then, leaf by leaf,

their reddish carpet covers up the ground.

It seems that with the leaves a peace descends.

The breeze breathes a sigh, perhaps relieved

and ready to forget how summer lived

intemperately.  But seasons change.  Amends

are made.  What was before cannot be found.


II.

Like a single, massive stone, clouds

roll in heavily overhead, sealing

everything in the darkened earth.  Stealing

downward, ashen snowflakes fill the ground.

Hours later, the landscape is buried

under whitish mounds.  The oak tree’s

limbs, covered in snow, slowly ossify

in the breathless, frozen air.  Nearby,

icicles curl over a stream, gripping

its banks like the fingers of a glass

skeleton.  The sun turns its vacant stare 

on the clouds, helpless to move them.  Everywhere,

silence keeps its secrets, and the days pass.

Winter is here: grave, still, and waiting.


III.

Early morning—like the first day

of creation—waits in dark mystery

for the light.  The dawn paints gradually

on its black canvass: first gray,

then color returns to the world’s

face like a man reviving.  All

winter long, the land has drunk the cold,

melting snow.  Underground, in small

gaps and crevices, things sprout and grow,

nourished by the runoff.  Flora raises

above ground, beyond the earth’s hold.

Limbs outstretched, the oak stands in bold

relief, suddenly shot through with the sun’s rays,

which crown spring and renew everything below.