Greenclad.

January Thoughts

Not yet blue sky behind,
not quite black ivy-clad oaks,
all the repertoire of their stark gestures
twisting, clawing, raking out
with the wind's prevailing animus,
internalized in inured psyches,
no longer shocking to us
as much we are to ourselves,
bared now, all our wired wiles,
January's veterans.

But back home here these buddly boughs,
smooth barked and soft-grey-limbed,
fruit trees that curve together, caging light,
that frame the white-lanced tunneling sun
in live girders of a circling illusion,
friuit-weight all their curve-works, self-wrought are
lacing bowers of experience;

and from their revelation
in this illumined afternoon I see the
honesty of a leafless winter,

not as our unmitigated actions
bereft of spring's good intentions,
of summer's deep forgiveness,

the candour of cleansing rain
on leaves already hardening to abscission,
of all the long distraction
their coloured fall trails beauty, and untidies,
til festooning Christmas
is all that hides our nakedness.

For January comes to undeceive.
indeed, but not to cast our circled darks
out deep among the restless churning
of bare, winter boughs;

but to inform and ground, to brace our vision,
clear the canvas for the coming colour;
to teach us how growth happens
and where it may occur.

The buds are clear, are clear,
and let imagination follow nature.

Patient or not, spring will at last rush through
to overwhelm and wring us from the blue.