Seasonal Limbo

Warm, moist, gray morning;
Brown cow wags it tail slowly;
Everything is still.







The camouflaged cat
Trots across the muddy path;
No one will see it.

Rain is in the air;
Brown pine needles hang drooping;
Drops cling to branches.








Acrid smell of smoke
Floats gently across the road--
Unseen and unheard.

Branches guard the woods-
Entwined, bare and spiderlike,
Catching falling leaves.

Gray slick and snakelike
The old road twists up the hill
In writhing stillness












Pocked yellow apples
Hang from the leafless branches:
Seasonal limbo.












Ghost white and bone clean
Dead limb stands with living--
Tree coexistence.

At edge of the cave
A tiny pine tree stands guard
Against the darkness.