poem

 Winter Breaks

I’m that scraggly tree over there

Looming over all the rest,

A wicker brush dusting

Off a film of ash

An arthritic claw 

Grasping at empty gray,

Ruing all the lovely things

No longer there to clutch  

I think I’m the one

Scratching at the sky 

Shaking my fist

In a shivering rage

But it’s just the March

Wind rushing in

To fill the void left

By a fleeing winter chill

That sways my trunk and limbs

And the saplings and hibiscuses 

And the reeds and grasses,

And all the world I’m standing in

So I'll give up the scratching

And imagine the winds as the work

Of shamans blowing into being 

One more fecund spring 

3/31/22