The Tree

January or February.

A winter month.

Down by the gate

a network of bare branches

rising from the imposing trunk

of the chestnut tree

is silhouetted

against a sullen sky.

At night

stars glitter,

pin-pricked against a pale moonlit sky.

There may also be the moon

before it wanders elsewhere.

---

On each branch,

Nodes, almost imperceptible,

contain the germ of a leaf,

waiting to burgeon forth

at the call of the sun.

---

Time passes.

Soon pale jade-green tufts

with at their core

shadow dabs of darker green

form a tapestry of leaves

anchored to the underlying skeleton

of interlacing branches.

---

Color ripples

across the land.

Spring has come.

A springing into life,

a looking to the future.

The obfuscation

of what had been before.

---

Time passes.

Ropes of catkins

drip from

a canopy of leaves,

littering the road.

They give way

to prickly burrs,

each of which

encases a future tree.

---

---

A chill autumn wind sweeps

through the woods.

Burrs plummet down,

footsteps pattering

among the trees,

as leaves, turning brown,

drift slowly through the air.

Rents in the fabric

reveal a canopy

pregnant with rain.

A gust of wind

sends leaves skittering

and descend faster

 down to earth.

---

---

Before long

bare branches will

be etched against a sullen sky,

the summer tapestry

no more than a dream.

Stars will glimmer

against a sky illuminated

by an unseen moon

as the cycle is renewed,

and January once more

gives way to February.

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