Winter Trees Poem by Christopher Tye

Winter Trees

Deep in winter trees showing no life,
Deep within their trunks life's heartbeats,
Dry branches with wind whistling past,
No leaves bourn hear today on a winter's day.

Dark shadows dancing on fresh white snow,
A myriad of trunks standing like sentinels,
Deep in the orchard black boughs stand in the shadows,
No fruits or flowers to be found today.

Life all around hidden in the trees,
Winters cold grasp driving life into shelter,
Animals and insects deep inside hollow trunks,
Everything waiting for springtime to emerge.

Foolish mankind not seeing what time can achieve,
Even in the dead silhouettes of winter lays hope,
We see no life in dead winter trees in woods,
But nature knows life force is more than looks.

Cold white skies lit by the low winter's sun,
Casting playful shadows as twigs dance in the winds,
All but the evergreen's hibernating in winter,
Only the Holly brave enough to bare berries,
Little orbs of red flickering within the snow flurries.

What life does mankind have compared with nature,
Trees stand firm and unyielding against the wind,
When we stand alone in winter what are we,
We are so little if our proud conceptions falter,
We die as children compered to old oaks and yews.

Sleeping giants unmoving in the cold of winter,
The purity of nature's grandest designs stand,
Curved and bowing boughs as proof of a new hope,
Near immortals clinging onto life in winters,
Knowing spring will bring new life into centuries old trunks.

By Christopher Tye