Last Walk Through the Garden

Let us take one last walk through the garden, down 

The path we have strolled so many times before

In earlier days made golden by the alchemy of time.

Today in the afternoon there is still

chill in the air and tonight it will freeze,

Let us take a last walk to see once more the little trees

At rest on their benches and mostly asleep.

How different it all is now near the end

Different from how it was just a month ago when leaves

Were ablaze with the colors of fire in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

A fleeting deception in the look of everything then,

A colorful veil draped over the tired and tattered

Belied the inevitable end closing in.

Different now from how it was three or four months ago 

When the days were long and hot and buzzing

With a million wings, and we kept to the shade

Watching quietly with heavy eyelids and shallow breath

The trees in their fullness shimmering, the green

Of their leaves dark and rich soaking in sunlight.

So different now from how it was at the very beginning, 

Long ago with leaves newly emerging

Unfurling so bravely to face the unknown,

Opening up to become what they must, come what may.

The freshness of it then was intoxicating,

In the newness of it an eternity of promise.

Look at them now, the little trees naked and stark

Rugged trunks and gnarled old branches frozen in their reaching,

Stretching in vain to the sky and questioning

Why? Why did this happen?

I was young once and my leaves were fresh and new,

I was strong once drawing my strength from the sun 

Drinking in the rain, shrugging off the hosts of adversity.

Now look at me, withered and shivering while the light 

Slowly fades and the cold bares its teeth!

We walk once more through the garden

And everything has changed now, has become smaller

Quiet and more somber. The little trees seem fragile now

Their branches bare with leaves all scattered

Helpless in their pots as dreamless sleep overtakes them.

Their garden season very nearly over

Soon to shelter they need to go, to a place protected

Where the desiccating wind cannot find them.

But one last walk through the garden and we see them

Under the gray sky looking like their neighbors rooted in the earth.

Craggy nature bearing mute testimony to the struggle,

Locked within the cycle of death and rebirth.

It has been another year and nothing more or less than that,

Once more a slow turning, the wheel of life revolving

For little trees and big trees and people alike.

Who knows what waits in the dark of winter?

Spring waits somewhere always beyond that.