To Trees Struck Down in Winter

Felled,

broken,

earth-thrust,

ground-borne,

I heard them lunge

dark down

(one day

when the sky wore dark

and my heart darker).

I saw them swing

out of the sky,

heard them sigh

who had known how to sing

only.

Today

I passed the field

I thought lonely

for branch-climb and song,

and I saw them

lying there

in the May:

not bare –

flowering;

not dead –

lying in flower;

striking light

on less than sky;

stretching up,

stretching;

sounding a song

to their last spring;

singing

(live-dead),

loving,

flowering for spring.

It was all they knew

to do.

Evelyn Coffey