There’s a ghost tree in the garden,
Spindly spine, non-branches,
Beginning as last year’s memory,
A stillness becoming a trembling
Of light, of movement,
Still frail but rallying
In its swaying aloneness.

The wind, nostalgic, strikes and dies
Upon the scant reflection of body
In the sky. What looks like leaving
Is an ongoingness of song,
A still-flowering of hope,
An unbreakable pattern
Of the art of renewal.