The embers of Autumn have quietly faded and fallen. Now I begin the mad rush of packing for the move to Guam (yes, Guam) by the end of the year. The winter chill and smell of snow has provoked the memory of a poem I wrote a few years back, during a time of chaos and inertia… hope you enjoy.

Trees of Winter

These wintry skeletons,

surrounded by a surreal fog,

draped in a gossamer shroud

painted a thousand shades of gray.

A beauty

without the cosmetics of color,

without the clothing of leaves,

without the halo of sunlight.

These wintry skeletons

display an elegant beauty

in their starkness,

their very absence of color.

They stand in defiance,

or more so,

in compliment to

the overt beauty of

Spring, Color, Light, and Renewal

These wintry skeletons

suffer the seasons like a fickle lover,

standing regal, statuesque, eternal.

Intrinsic to life, true to the essence of absence.

A covert beauty, dark, and secret.

Hidden beneath green leaves, full of color, dressed in dew,

With blossoming flowers that catch men’s eyes.

These wintry skeletons

magnificent Sentinels of Truth

standing in gray grandeur

when flowers blossom no more

and the dew of youth evanesce

Elegance within the gray shroud of Absence

Beauté dans la laideur de la Verité 

(Beauty within the Ugliness of Truth)