Birch:** paper moon bark shakes lightly in a twilight breeze. sheds like antlers, Gaia’s horns. whispers shimmer, overlooking crumbling banks and silver tarns
Choke Cherry: wheel-turned silver bark, popcorn spotted. red rotted hearts they try to hide with arching height and pucker punch. too proud they sharpen sunshine lances that in time will fell them
Dogwood: gothic outline cryptic, cracked and ancient even young. rigid fingers yet outstretched lifting jade-pooled, budded gems. a flower or a piece of skin, raising pale veined, dimpled petals
Maple: tissue paper mast, thousand layers spongy under the high crown. breeding dust motes under the rusty flakes. sweet budding lips in spring that wait for fawn-spotted, sugared kisses
Oak:  knotted roots, the mealy earth that beneath a ponderous trunk. acorns ground to flour, crescent slivers cracked. oxidizing leaves shield the undergrowth’s small creatures
Pine: needles spring mattress below solemn peaks. silent cathedrals, pillars marking lost spring houses, crumbling cisterns. warm winter guardians of bronzed turkeys, heavy in sheltered branches
     For more information, walk.   Touch the pebbled hides and trembling skin. Examine the stained glass roof laid in patches. They sigh and speak, shout across oceans. Be informed it is not the wind.