The Trees

The trees
under this substantive white space,
this back-light of sticky snow-crystal heaps,
are revealed.


Here are no straight lines.
Each trunk and twig embodies
its own slow, sinuous progression.
A flayed stub of dead tree
lays bare this whorling--
its wooden muscles graining
up and around,
like a twist of clay.


Above, scaled bellies of old oaks
and all top-twigs stand
in high relief under
a gray-white hood under
a gray-white sky.
And I, beneath, awed, enveloped,
breathe my tiny breath
so much more loudly
than the forest.