Upon one doctored tree
in a long, winter avenue,
its semi-pollard boughs
silhouettes against a blue-milk sky,
accrues a top
sprouting of big, black leaves
where starling flocklet flits to sit
- Ha! -
as if a child, keen for the effect,
a stumpy artist with a thickish brush
had washed the back first,
as her Mammy taught,
then made the tree-form
licorice solid,
dabbed the black brush thus -
to bestow life.
The birds look down at me
long dirk-beaks astir,
lean, speckled bodies twisting
and at each other too,
so slightly tensed to go all at one clatter,
an instant autumn to illusion's smile;
but note me down as harmless -
stay awhile.
YOU ARE READING
Greenclad.
PoetryIvy-jacketed, December oaks on road-borders shock their stark gestures at us now, through sun and sleet, that January will yawn at and February, propping eyelids, will desperately ignore, longing for blossom; and making do with the least of anything...
