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| Old Beech |
Up the wooded slope to the cabin
with the wind over me
breathy chords
in bare crowns
already beaded and waiting for spring
past the old beech
multi-trunked
elephantine
heaving the rocky ground over centuries
dark scars of initials
caged in a heart
blackened and swollen with years
regret for the carving
mistakes of the young
forty years gone
fingers cold from these notes
amid crusts of old snow
imprinted by grouse and by deer
by fox and by mice
by naive expectation
as if unions were endless
as windsongs in crowns
encrusted with promise.
