The weathered tree has seen the light of half a century’s Springs.
With warming breeze, or icy winds its wide canopy sings.

Summer brought a blessed growth of branch and leaf and core.
The trunk forged strong, the roots bore deep, the branches grew to soar.

And after many seasons, plain, the hopeful sylvan flowered.
And on the forest’s to needled bed the fragrant petals showered

Many thought the flowers brash, the fragrance overbloomed
Perhaps, it seemed, the tree had not been well and truly pruned.

The joy those days bequeathed to it, a height it had not known,
Was drawn into and scattered round with seed that it had sown.

But seasons change and Autumn’s cold reality intruded,
And every branch of its bright cloak, summarily denuded.

Then, with Winter’s sharp descent, the mirthless dark takes hold.
This taller mast, once bathed in light, is battered by the cold.

But even then, in bitter snow, when branches bend and hew,
The hope still holds a sacred place, that Summer springs anew.