Landscape Bereft Poem by Graham Stone

Flaking debris fell from a forlorn, forgotten tree
That stood so so sad upon a flanking bank of utter misery.
Winter set and screamed the leaves away from the twigs,
And left naked the branches,
The brittle bark, bitten, and broken by the frost.
Crumpled leaves littered the frozen earth and stuck fast
To the hard and glistening soil,
The shards and fragments of their fabric stood petrified
Proudly immortalised for their squat span of time
As the sleeping tree, shivering in its squally skin of bark,
Shrinks and cries icy anguish and cold blue melancholy