Reflections on Nature and Life
  

"...bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang..."
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

1

Trees stand
Leaf-less,
Their branches arching
Into the leaden sky.

Easy to see them
As bereft,
The debris of nests
The only sign of avian families.

Now they sleep,
The exuberant growth
Of spring and summer
Gifted to the autumn winds.

2

The trees empty of birds-
Silent-
No songs to enchant the ear,
And gladden the heart.

The muses gone
>From the groves-
No longer able
To inspire.

A seasonal aberration
Leaving a vacuum
To be filled
By inner music...

Or a permanent loss-
Life too cruel and capricious
For the evocation
Of beauty and truth.

3

Each tree impinges
On my vision,
Asserting itself,
Silently saying,
"See me."

Some grow
Alone,
Symmetrical,
Strong trunks
Forming branches
With the interstices
Filled in
By thinner branches
Terminating,
Finally,
In frail twigs.

Some
Stand together
For companionship.
Side by side
At attention,
Like wooden soldiers.

Others,
Yet,
Are bent,
Appearing to embrace,
Or snapped
By inclement weather,
Their crowns lean,
In obeisance,
To touch another's roots.

In their bareness,
And silence,
They suggest
Life reduced to its essence
Resisting
The buffeting
Of external forces
In quietude
And stasis.

4

In the woods,
Snow has formed
A white crust
That cracks
And settles
In footprint shapes.

Underneath,
The brown leaves
Undergo
A transformation-
Becoming
New soil.

The dogs run ahead
On the track of deer,
Or other wildlife.
They disappear
For minutes on end
And we are left wrapped in silence.

It is almost too cold
To be walking outdoors.
Fingers and toes
Chilled to a dull ache,
Ice forms around eyelids
And scarf covering my mouth.

Nature asserts itself,
Making the human irrelevant
In this landscape
Where sleep and death
Are one
And absolutes converge.

5

No sunshine
Or bird song
In this dark place
Defined by negatives.

An eternal winter
Of the heart.
Beyond the solace
Of human touch.

6

Five deer stand,
Alert,
In the thicket,
Surrounded by
Plowed fields.

Hoar frost
Has covered everything.
Shelterbelts
Of fir, aspen and willow,
Made into snowcastles.

So much whiteness-
Field, trees and sky.
All the same
But different-
Incandescent.

7

Black swallows
Break from the tree tops
And form a ragged line
As they fly for the horizon
And disappear.

At the side of the road,
Two crows pick
At something
And traces of red
Appear in the whiteness.

8

The trees in my back garden
Are fir,
Manitoba maple
And another,
I cannot name
On this winter morning.

They are still
And,
Seemingly,
Lifeless
Until a slight movement
Catches my attention.

A squirrel,
Balletically,
Leaps from branch-to-branch
And tree-to-tree,
Finishing with a highwire act
On the powerline.

9

The contemplation of winter,
When plants do not grow,
The clearing, empty of birds
And their sweet song.

That time of endings,
Of being trapped
In the ruins of the past,
Unable to evoke remembered music.

Always, the clearing in the wood,
The stillness,
Silence,
The pastness of things.

The inexpressible beauty
Of the snow,
Blinding in the sunlight
And masking death.

The birds have fled
But I am here,
Contemplating winter
And making my own music.

10

The sound of the wind
Wrapping itself around the house,
Whistling past obstructions
And making the cold siding crack.

This signals a subtle change
That is not evident
Until morning
When water drops from the eves.

Warm Chinook winds
Have come over the mountains,
Loosened the grip of winter
And given us a taste of spring.

The insistent drip of water
Creates stalactites
And stalagmites
Of yellowy ice.

But this is only temporary-
Nature teasing us with hope.
The next night, the house tenses,
It is winter again.

11

Blackened sticks
That once were trees
Stand side-by-side
Stripped of branches.

The firs recognizable
Only by the clusters
Of burned cones
Forming decorative crowns.

As the car speeds past,
The landscape becomes
A Renaissance woodcut-
Stark and surreal.

For endless miles
Only the play
Of dark lines
On a white field.

12

Silent ravens
Soar
Above the desolation,
Making invisible patterns
In the cloudless sky.

13

The birds are audible
But not visible
This winter morning
In the city.
Bare-branched
Mountain ashes and poplars
Provide no shelter.
Only dense firs
With their crowns of cones
Offer hospitality.

Songs emerge
>From nowhere-
Sweet,
Repetitive,
Melodic.
I have no language
To describe them
Other than-
Chirp, chirp
To-whit, to-whit.

But they have
Animated
An ordinary morning
Walk to work,
Made the trees emerge
>From between buildings
And remnants of houses
On this once residential street
Nature asserting itself
And gladdening the heart.

14

The air is heavy
With snow.
No distinction between
Earth and sky,
Only the ribbon of asphalt
Leading onward.

Suddenly,
A flock of snowbirds
Appears,
Hanging in the sky
Like a character
In Chinese calligraphy.

Their wings formed
By a sable brush
Dipped in Indian ink.
Other than us,
The only living element
In the landscape.

Until the clouds begin
To move
And the wind picks up snow
Sweeping it down
The length of the valley
Disturbing the stillness.

Heeding a secret call,
The cluster of buntings
Explodes outward
And they disappear
Into the pervasive
Whiteness.

© 2006 Adriana Davies