Circle of Life

The graceful skeletons
lose their flesh of summer sun.

Naked, stark and cold
rain-oiled sinews
flex in the teasing wind
beckoning to the grey, uneasy skies.

The sylvan acrobats
head dreywards with their spoils
survival stashed in secret stores.

Unfulfilled, the hope of spring
lost in summer's indiscriminate excess
sees wistful autumn in its dying fall
usher winter's cleansing death
missed heartbeat of a necessary pause
until new life insistently returns.

Till then these imperious witnesses of life
accept with grace
the modest clothing snow
and rare finery of rime
oblivious to shame
oblivious to time.

They guard the embryonic spring
that tempts us with precipitate signs
of flakes and drops of earth-born snow
proclaiming the imminence
of as yet unborn but unresisting hope.

And so the eternal cycle of our dreams
explodes in the irresistibility of growth
and our guardians at the gate of trust
await the glorious moment of rebirth
clothed again, stark beauty hid
by the effusion of
the unremitting gift of life.

Zettel