TWISTED TREES

It’s easy to praise

lush trees weighted

with fruit or flowers

but the true test

of love is to trace

skeletal silhouettes,

stripped of their leaves

by the wind.

What remains—

the endurance of bark,

exposed, the wisdom

of bare branches

to carry less

of winter’s weight.

   Karen Douglass

Photograph used with permission from Kit Hedman, photographer.  Thanks, Kit.