Winter Trees

And it's always a little bit harder in winter
– when the naked limbs of the trees
grasp at cold horizons,
fragile and exposed,
every movement revealed
without the pomp and circumstance
of a thousand rustling, shimmering leaves.

But that's the beauty, too, revealed,
– to see the work underneath,
the effort that creates
the final product,
which seems so fluid and easy
yet is composed of a thousand skeletal angles,
enduring what it must today
in order to dance and shimmer tomorrow.

I see you:
Your fragility, your angles –
how you bend that which should not bend,
how you twist, reaching for the sun,
how you had to fight to be "lucky"
in order to survive.

For a hundred years, you have strived –
and still you remain,
a surreal miracle
of dirt and water, sun and sky.