Tree

From time to time I find them sleeping in my shadow,
Or whispering their secrets to the wind; and I am wise
Beyond the years that share this hill with me,
That held me, wordless, as I woke to dawn’s first kiss.
And so I wash the lovers’ dappled arms
In a bowl of shade, and the sun licks their faces and curls
At their feet. And the air turns chill with autumn; and then
They are gone, and their path is lost in clouds and snow.  

The earth is cold and sour but it will warm again, and then
They will return, their skins and ages changed; the sky will fill
With birdsong or with tears; and they will come to me again, perhaps
To laugh or dance in leaping green, perhaps
To mourn the day now passed, the hollows of the hills;
And I shall fold them into me, wrap them in roots and fallen leaves.