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.