After the Fall – winter poem

 After the Fall

 

The evergreens, brave sailors all,

ride full sail into the first snow,

beams bent from proud masts

as they weather the season’s storms,

charted on an immutable course toward spring. 

 

The deciduous, already winter-moored,

make of the forest a quiet harbor

where boats rock gently in the breeze.

These are the ships of summer,

all signs of life tucked away

beneath the blizzard’s taut tarp

while icicles form stalactites on twiggy spars

and grasp their bony frames.

 

The earth below, now a sea of frozen waves,

frost-jewels flooded across a new-hushed world.

Cozy, it turns and dreams 

beneath its blanket lily-white

waiting still for ever colder nights

when she, the world, 

and her snowy forest fleet

will glimmer as they sail beneath the moonlight.