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| Flickr Creative Commons photo by Brett Bolkowy |
Have you read LITTLE TREE by Loren Long? Franki reviewed it here. (Go ahead and click over. I'll wait. Make sure you watch the 1.5 minute video by Loren Long at the end of her post. )
My poem for today is the late 1800's version of LITTLE TREE. Both Long and Thomas remind us that change is hard, but necessary.
It might be time for you to let go of some leaves. Have faith that some sort of spring will come. Believe that you can (you will!) continue to grow.
Have a happy new year. And a brave one.
Winter Leafage
by Edith Matilda Thomas (1854-1925)
Each year I mark one lone outstanding tree,
Clad in its robings of the summer past,
Dry, wan, and shivering in the wintry blast.
It will not pay the season’s rightful fee,—
It will not set its frost-burnt leafage free;
But like some palsied miser all aghast,
Who hoards his sordid treasure to the last,
It sighs, it moans, it sings in eldritch glee.
A foolish tree, to dote on summers gone;
A faithless tree, that never feels how spring
Creeps up the world to make a leafy dawn,
And recompense for all despoilment bring!
Oh, let me not, heyday and youth withdrawn,
With failing hands to their vain semblance cling!
Each year I mark one lone outstanding tree,
Clad in its robings of the summer past,
Dry, wan, and shivering in the wintry blast.
It will not pay the season’s rightful fee,—
It will not set its frost-burnt leafage free;
But like some palsied miser all aghast,
Who hoards his sordid treasure to the last,
It sighs, it moans, it sings in eldritch glee.
A foolish tree, to dote on summers gone;
A faithless tree, that never feels how spring
Creeps up the world to make a leafy dawn,
And recompense for all despoilment bring!
Oh, let me not, heyday and youth withdrawn,
With failing hands to their vain semblance cling!
