Guest Poem: Winter Scene

 

In winter the wood is unmasked
Naked limbs stretch in vain
Towards the cold sun.
Knobbly branches, like aged fingers,
Poke the sky.

Fallen boughs, decay and lightning’s victims,
Lie like skeletons in winter’s graveyard.
Bereft of summer’s green shrouds.

Only black and brown remain
From the multi-coloured canopy of autumn,
Now fallen, a carpet damp and rotting,
Untrodden …

Holly and yew stand sentinel
Waiting to feel the falling snow
Form soft flounces on their prickly skirts

They will return to shade,
Once spring’s warm breath
Has clothed the wood again.

 

 

Written by my mother, Margery Wood c. 2010