behind the welter of
summer leaves green
the fragile jagged limbs
of hanging winter lurk.
I feel them stalking there
in the creak and crackle
of aging joint and bone
erosion. The road’s turn
sidles continuously away
as hair goes snowy
falling to my feet.
Cold time again with
its struggle to raise
my head and greet pain.
Warmth is still in me
radiating out less an
inch or two as skin scales
over preparing to tear.
Leaves will come again, again
a matter of weeks in
their lonely, stolid years.
The twist and twine
of slow-moving vine
tie them together,
green shapes conjoined,
until the slowest time
when the creeping vine
has tied them tight
to choke them out.
The leaves shall wither and
fall, pooling at the
straight edges with which
we gird and grid our lives.
There is no security
in the vines and lines
that link us all.
it is we, growing every which
way. We are pulled together
and hold our lives
warming our world
binding us to that which
is safe, and loved, and connected,
and impossibly old.
Hopeville Community Center 