1.
A star-shaped
patch of snow,
achingly white,
rests against the base
of the little white
pine, wrapped
in glittering
golds and reds, gifts
for the Christ Child.
No claw or paw
or beak or wing
has touched the snow.
Only a hidden pitch
of grass pushes
it skyward.
It shirks
its shrinkage
north
of the pine.
It will not
winnow until
the bright star burns.
I pass the snow
and think of nothing.
2.
Lightning split
the hide
of the 80-year-old
oak that shaded
our little tan house
each summer.
Its bark ripped
apart like
wallpaper,
life leeching out
of its crooked limbs
in sap-soaked
streams of sorrow,
making room
for the little white pine
to thrive
in the dead of winter.
Nature is not
our friend.
3.
The pine prays to preserve
some piece of the oak
I used to love. Its needles,
like shark’s teeth,
fend off friend and foe
alike, granting it
the right to grow
wherever it likes,
even here,
at the foot of giants.
Dead, the pin oak loans
its beauty to no one,
boasts only of its hard,
straight wood,
an abiding abode
for birds and squirrels
and barking boys.
I climb to its top
each Christmas,
straining toward
the Epiphany star.
The tree sways, and
I think of nothing.
4.
The burgeoning pine
pines for such power.
You cannot cut it
without exposing
its darkened knots,
like aging spots
on my hands
and face.
It rises bright with
anemone-like cones
dappled on its coat
of single color:
evergreen,
ever young.
Ever gone,
my pilgrim oak.
I stretch toward the star
of Bethlehem,
dreaming my way
to Heaven, saying No
to the punishing
star of snow below.
Hanging high
above the Earth,
I sense the Christ Child
in my branches.
Wet, wild grasses
brush His cradle,
push me skyward,
His star my home.
Written on a rare Epiphany Sunday.