A Branch In Winter

Life Goes On

She kicks her heels up to the sky

and gently tiptoes on the sun.

In verdant hues, she captures eye,

drunk on the new day just begun.

She glistens with the morning rain,

smiling bright with the breath of spring

and blossoms with the sweet refrain:

Life is such a glorious thing!

Her basket brims with fragrant scent

carried aloft upon the wind.

She wonders where her lover went

and why their ardor had to end.

She leans into the azure height

to seek some shelter from the pain.

Her head is wrapped in golden light.

Emerald eyes are full of rain.

She wraps herself in crimson fire,

trembling slightly from the storm,

the sky her lute, the wind her lyre.

Indian Summer makes her warm.

In chestnut tones, she paints the sky.

Leaves flutter, flutter to the ground.

A scarf of frost covers the eye

as the leaves gather, gather round.

The coldness creeps into her bones.

Her breath is breathing wintered white.

The frightful sound of blue-veined moans

flurries throughout the web of night.

Icicles lace her wearied head.

Her skin is ghostly, fragile, pale.

Her final plaint, and she falls dead

beneath the lace of winter’s veil.

Her spine is made of evergreen

in spite of winter’s falling snow

crowned with a life like few have seen

or hands of time will ever show.

I trace the echoes of her song.

My heart lifts its excited wing;

and as the seasons roll along:

Life is such a glorious thing!

Reviews

[Willard Wells]

We write on pretty opposite ends of the spectrum in form but the content of love from a romantic is still strong. Soft lovely imagery flows with your words. Very nice.

[Hannah]

This was a gorgeous poem, very elegant and expressive. Good job!

[Dean]

as you read it---it certainly is!

[David Scott]

You poetry blends the worlds of physical and philosophical well. My mind went to the elegant grandmothers of the American Indian tribes. I love to look into wise, aged eyes and see the glimmer of spring hidden behind the frost of time clouded lenses.
Lovely write and affirmation of this life's cycles.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you for your deep and intuitive response. No one breathed more appreciation for nature than Native Americans, and I love the comparison.

[Roland Petrov]

A spine of evergreen; love it! A nice analogy and a beautiful poem.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you so much, Roland. :-)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i like the analogy of the woman being like a branch on a tree..encountering all types of seasons, and climates, just as we experience all that life allows us...and if we are smart, we realize that Life is such a glorious thing...as you express in the poem...the repetition of that line really works so well...

j.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you, Jacob. My initial idea was to use the branch, representing myself, having fallen away from the "family tree." This was the final result, which I like much better. It's hard not to feel like that fallen branch, but life is good and life goes on. Thank you for reading.