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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Trees-

We are surrounded by trees here- a giant, 200+ year old maple out front, and hickory, walnut, maples and pines everywhere. I love trees in summer, but there is something about winter that brings out the best in trees...


The silver setting sun hugs close
among the maples- grey-boned ghosts
march row on row against the sky,
as day gives way to silent night.
Those black-ribbed maples,
marked with scars,
reaching silent to the stars,
their grey and yellow fingers bare
against the chill night's frosty air,
which wraps our knees against our coats,
we huddle close, our breath makes ghosts,
the starlight beckons, blazes, boasts,
against the black and velvet void,
those shimmers mark
a flaming spark, to light our
ghostly breaths in grey.

Come, sit with me
'till break of day.

3 comments:

Mike said...

I do love looking at the outlines of trees on a clear winter night. There are few things that I find more comforting.

My grandmother used to have a couple of apple trees in her back yard with low branches. When I was a kid, I would go out at night in the late fall and winter and climb up as high as I could in those trees and just look at the shapes they made against the sky.

The best part was when she would come out looking for me. I would stay silently hidden in the trees until she walked around to the front of the house and then drop down and sneak in the back door. When she would come in I would be sitting at the kitchen table. I could always convince her that I had been there all along.

Forrest Proper said...

mike- that's a great rememberance, thanks for telling it!

Phoebe Fay said...

Lovely, Colonel. Lovely.