LIFE AND DEATH IN SPRING

Photo by S. Auberle

REQUIEM FOR A TREE

It is difficult, this being

a stranger on earth.

~Sam Hamill

I sit in spring sunshine,

beneath my dying rowan tree.

Only a single branch

is green with life. This year

it must come down,

its broken body

no longer able to blaze

autumn's bright berries,

its work completed at last.

But, from the scarred top

today, finch and cardinal

are singing their nuptial songs,

or a cheerful requiem,

I can't say which.

Perhaps they are the same.

~mimi