"Bare Trees" and Other Poems

Bare Trees

Through bare trees
I can see all the rickety lean-tos
and sheds, and the outhouse
with the half-moon on the door,
once modestly covered in
summer's greenery.

Through bare trees
I can watch the hawk
perched on a distant branch,
black silhouetted wings
shaking feathers and snow,
and so can its prey.

Through bare trees
I can be winter's innocence,
unashamed needfulness,
the thin and reaching limbs
of a beggar, longing to touch
but the hem of the sun.

---

The Fifth of March

I was not expecting a ghost today,
not even on this ghostly March morning.
I had not thought of him for years,
then his photograph appeared
amidst the cobwebs of spring cleaning,
and I remembered that today was
my grandfather's birthday.

Forty-ish then, the camera said,
his Scot red hair on the high road to recession,
his arms awkwardly dangled a wee babe,
ME, his first grandchild,
his face blood-rushed with pride.
I broke down and cried.

There is a sorrow that comes
with the death of winter,
with the death of memories,
with Lenten-purple swag clouds
and bagpipe winds and
scattered ashes of penitent snow,
and birthday wishes to ghosts
of auld March days long ago.

---

The Shamrocks are White

The shamrocks are white
and twinkly on this snowy
Saint Patrick's Day,
and the tender grasses
seem to giggle under
their blankets of fleece,
and the trees and their limbs
look gay in their sleeves
of marshmallow puff,
lining the streets in a tangled march,
soft sculptures on parade.

For despite the day's frost
the Spirit o' the Green lives on,
dispensing its cheer
through kegs of green beer,
only this year Miss Biddy
prefers the froth.

---

A Light in Greening Woods

Chasing frost and wintry shadows
A light in greening woods comes waxing
And warms the heart of Watchers Hollow
Scattered sun through branchy windows.

The Christian world would think it queer
So I tell no one I come here
Between the Ides of March and Spring
This holy channel of the year.

I wonder during my retreat
What might be moving 'neath my feet
Deep underground where no man hears
Below these steps of soil and peat.

Persephone begins her scape
Through subterranean street and gate
With Pluto's chariot at her heels
Midst rumbling hell and fiery hate!

I smile, but soon grow stone still
A sudden shadow brings a chill
The Equinox is not yet here
And darkness rules this place until.

I feel the Watchers in the woods
When light in greening woods comes waxing
And I can hear their spirits hum
And I must go before they come
And I must go before they come