Carol Batton - Manchester Poet
1992
Trees Come Back to Life in Winter
Among the greenery, I can see,
Stark reality
Black clawing branches,
Still extant in Winter,
Always there, though hidden in Summer,
Really, where, reality is inside...
Deeper meanings; moanings of Despair,
Inside the tree - Black is there!
Soft matt leaves, mass alive -
Dead wood twigs, are what survive!
Living leaves - the soft screens of Summer;
Twisting wood, harsh screams of Winter.
Though something, shows, of the harsh within,
Yet greeness stirs, and falls in the wind.
The soft leaves go and leave the tree,
It's the bark that endures, on the hard of the tree,
And the twigs that last for Eternity.
Despair endures in our heart;
Towards Compassion.
Passion falls in Autumn, wood will always be,
The product of life's hardship,
That lasts for Eternity.
Life lingers on leaves for a year,
But wood expands with time;
In Summer strength unknown beneath,
In Winter trees survive the wind.
It's wood as is useful to man,
It's hardness does what it can.
Though leaves are good,
(They cool the heart),
It's your adversity that judges you,
What you make of your Winters,
That merits the true,
The time spent in Sorrow,
Yet still being kind;
is like the wood that is left behind.
But think not of the leaves that
will leave the tree.
When it's Winter and you still see
Tree,
That is the Strength of Eternity.
Carol Batton 1992.