The trees have shed everything in defiance of frozen air,
Nudely and bravely they boast of their strength with a stoic’s stare.
Their leaves have deserted them, their fruit has fallen, they don’t care.
The trees in January stand strong in loneliness, and bare.

Is their naked strength in the wind how they are supposed to be?
Do they welcome autumn, to rid themselves of their greenery?
Perhaps they don’t notice that the lives they gave have set them free?
They have lost something beautiful, but are they less of a tree?

Spring water flows into their roots, branches drop their icy weight,
The first sun-kissed buds emerge to witness the tree foliate.
But does the tree even notice this, its cause to celebrate?
The tree is at its life-giving most, but it does naught but wait.

The tree changes before me, and because of it I change, too.
But in that moment, when I love that tree, it feels nothing new.
And I think back, if the moment someone loved me, if I knew?
But I am too like the tree, oblivious to what is true.