I as a Tree

The angle of the listing winter sun,

Like a slow heavy ship on the horizon,

There is the sound of sad violins in this light.

My naked branches reach up in deliverance,

I am sluggish and sad,

The last of my leaves cling by chance

In the wind-

Soon they will be gone from me,

There is no color in me anymore.

I feel the withdrawing vein of creation-

Slowly pulling out from me, into the cold earth.

There is no comfort in this sunlight,

Its long gold rays, useless to me as a lost lover.

My roots reach deep for warmth, anything.

The ground is beginning to freeze and the low sun sinks;

My own hope being sapped into the winter wind.

I remember a different time though,

When the vein of creation pulsed and bound in me,

I could rise into the warming winds-

I was bursting with the light of life.

Asleep at night to the whispering spring winds

Haunting my newborn leaves.

And even the moonlight nurtured me.

As I fade into the bitter hands of this lonely cold,

I dream this is not the end.

Dreams that I return somehow,

My worried branches filled with delight

In the amber sun-

"I want to live" I whisper

Live again.

Learn more about this author, Austin Brown.
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