Tree in Fog

Leafless hands
Against winter sky
Reach for sun

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Camaraderie

standing tall against
the purple cast of twilight
a small girl raises
night-cooled arms to the sky.

the tree besides her smiles,
for it has done the same.

Palm Tree

My favorite is the palm tree’s woven trunk
smoothly grooved beneath my hands

As if carefully planed by a divine carpenter
the rough bark nestles against my cheek

The sweet decay of coconuts counterpoints
dropping bounty without end

I too, seek to become a tree
and layer years upon me

Bereaved

Outside my window
A gray, thunderstruck tree
Sags with bent shoulders
Bare-branched and anxiously bowed
It tilts, as if into a future
Where you might return

Zoologist

Two eyes watch upon the branch
And small talons cling as a wind sways the tree
A black-bearded specimen of avian fauna
Wonders as I pace in spiraling circles
Spitting freshly chewed grass:
An indecipherable human mating dance

At Sunset

Blue-ivy shadow
Cast by the elm tree at dusk
Silhouettes starve thin

Birds Before Winter

Winter wrens forecast a season of snow
Maples shed their leaves as a lady does
Peeling off her layers of petticoats
On the lake, mallards drift aimlessly
Blue jays and cardinals flit eagerly;
Peanuts rattle in the birdwatcher’s hand

Comet

Whenever I feel old
I look at the lights across the water
On that bridge older than I
I think of elms and oaks
And all the children they have sheltered
Playing underneath their scarred boughs
Compared to many things
I am like a comet
A streak of light
Momentarily glimpsed
And smiled upon by that
Eternal eye