Turning Woods

Turning Woods

How  trees in season change
Colors like clothes,
According to the clime, arrange
Their habit full
And barren, as with moods,

A well-timed turning fashion;

That leafy green becoming red
Emblazoned orange, gold and brown,
Then falling bare
As weather chills the air,
These branches still and seeming dead,

A well-timed turning fashion.

Ironic they should lose
As we ourselves enshroud;
Then putting on again a raiment fine
As longer days begin to shine
And we disclose

These limbs discovered when
The trees put on again
Colors like clothes;
Losing their garments with the snow,
While we put on, they naked go,

Those branches barren as our moods,
These woods we know so well
In witness to this history,
After so many seasons, still
A mystery.

KLK
1/12/14