Trees

 

Dark on this side, silver-white on the western

and seeming to bend under the weight of sunlight,

but, like beech leaves closing their palms,

the branches curve away from the wind.

The intricacy of trees exposed in December,

belying an apparent haphazardness,

here there’s a consistent angle in a tree’s branching,

there an upward sweep of branch-endings.

Beyond, topping the hills, now hay and rust coloured,

are windmills, Calvary-stark against the winter sky,

and they too harvesting energy, trees as we would design

them; spare and artless.