Deadwood fingers

Deadwood fingers

Brittle sticks

Tinder dry

Skin a wrinkle

Of worn parchment

Never as smooth

As yesterday

When regal trees

Were a row of dancing

Horses

In the spring breeze

Leaf wax shining

Slicked with the sweat of morning dew

A cloud of

Cherry blossom

Softly falling

A royal carpet

Strewn haphazardly

For the comfort of lovers

Their shadows

Still may linger

As autumn falls

Over the stiffened

Husk of another summer

Skeletal limbs

Withered from ages

Spent withstanding,

Bent from the weight

Of their own expectation

Stubbornly

Holding on,

For dear life

Is all they really know

As the cold winds blow

Window tapping

Dry twigs scraping

A tuneless lament

In a gathering gloom

For the glory

Of another year

The promise

Of life

And the wonder

Of a bountiful bloom

Soon to come.