Walnut Tree

A walnut tree

Leans over my house like a mother

And in the morning,

My bedroom window is shaded by her leafy branches hanging down

Like unbound hair.

All summer long,

She is a comforting companion

And she rustles in the breeze

As if she were folding clean sheets

Or moving about in long old-fashioned skirts.

But each year,

Usually in November,

She drops all her leaves in a single day,

As if autumn had simply broken her heart at a single stroke.

This winter just gone,

I knew exactly how she felt--

Both of us bare,

Bereft,

Bearing the weight of a hard winter on our shoulders.

Did my walnut tree know

That Nature will out?

Was she being coy

Not sharing what she knew?

Once again it's spring and she

Leans over the ones she loves.

She knows that, all unexpectedly,

Someone brought their sweetness

And my world greened up,

With summer and a warming trend

Blowing in from a western sky.

__________