Nov 25
Half the year
green tunnels
enclose the roads
and paths,
surround the fields,
plump the ridgelines,
make forest something
you must enter into,
that you cannot see through;
the fall of almost all
the green
brings back the long lines
and contours of the ground;
and contrary for a month or two
displays all the colors we can see
that are not green.
Mar 14
You expect moss in the woods, on rocks,
here and there.
And along the branch
where conditions are right.
Or by the house on the stack
of old chimley stones.
But it’s spreading under the Chinese Chestnut trees
and in wide swathes,
hundreds, thousands, of square feet.
Grass will argue in some places,
but the grass has surrendered in most places.
Not exactly new this year, but accelerated,
from decades of not spreading lime,
or from some fresh factor,
from changes in the climate?
It’s soft and pretty and can’t be mowed,
ideal for a graveyard.
Jan 3
I told the pretty little hornbeam, forty years ago,
that little maple sapling will not bother you,
I’ll keep it lifted and away.
There’s room for both, I said.
The spruce looming at the bottom of the orchard was a seedling then,
its siblings all harvested for Christmas trees,
except one pine also grown too big for Christmas.
They’ve grown up entwined a quarter century since.
Good year for cones on the high branches.
The trees are transparent now
to the sky and the ridge across the valley
for half the year a solid mass of green.
See through down to the branch.
See right through the unending woods, almost.
In every quarter see the horizon of ridgetop and sky.
The leaves will be beautiful when they return.
But we’ll miss the long view through the silver trunks
just as much as we miss their dense green cloak.
