Tree Glyphs

The deciduous trees are decisive in autumn.
They cut off the flow of sap to leaves
And shed them.
The trees release their flapping flags, their green finery,
and offer their skeletal selves, like an open palm,
To the wind, ice, and snow.




A late November rain, viscous and on the verge of ice,
Clings to naked branches.
The drops yield slowly to my touch,
But pierced, finally trail down my glove in a mercury-like trail.
The trees must wait, breathless, to see if a sudden fall in temperature
will crystallize those drops into deadly ice,
Its weight dragging down and snapping twigs,
Or worse, arm-like branches that crack the silence of a winter night.




Would that I had the strength, the fortitude of thick bark and a sleeping cambium,
To bare myself in winter, offer myself up to the rawness and risk of it.



But though the trees and I speak a different language,
when I read their signs—
a dead leaf laced by time,
an open, heart-like seedpod,
a lichen-covered stick—
I see a common grammar:
Hope.