By Jean Ponzi
Bare Trees
One bright morning, early November
Eyes open into a lattice of branches:
Colors are gone!
Leafy space empty!
What happened to this Growing Season?
Last spring bestirred so slowly…
Chilly rains kept April creeping
Life-force, tempered, held back buds
Until a mid-May BURST of Greening
Early summer: mild, a blessing
So many nights cooled just by breezesRain enough to naturally water
‘Til Dog Star beams ignited August
Through all this round of leaves a-flutter
Did I feel the heat of Living?
Yes! picked and savored basil, tomatoes,
Frolicked through the fêtes of summer
Twirled into autumn dazzle!
But – did I absorb Earth’s essence, really?
Big Green, turned brown, morphs into compost
Life cycles into deeper feelings
This isn’t a problem – I’m not complaining
I love perspective stilled by winter:
Stark, clear views-through the tangled places
Obscured by small-L life’s profusion
I treasure the season when frozen waters
Reveal, in stillness, inner patterns,
The busy habits of thought and feeling,
And chill-out pace sustains reflection:
Resolve to better feel this Living
Now morning views are planar beauty
Sketched on the sky, a linear matrix,
In skeletal winter grays
Earth’s archetypal architecture
And one night: full-moon beams on snow
Sketched slim black shadows
So rare in changing climate
One sight I always hope to see again,
Held in heart and mind’s white spaces
Tree friends, Life rests in you, waiting
To rouse and flow and Green all being.
Jean Ponzi is a longtime local Green advocate and educator, through her Earthworms interview podcasts on KDHX and her work with the EarthWays Center of Missouri Botanical Garden.