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This is Kinda long but I needed to store it in my files.  So here’s an early one for my wife that hangs in our bedroom.  I was getting to know her more and more and often I would assume and/or misunderstand her and she often was misunderstood.  Being from a different culture often put a disconnect between her and her north american friends.   I tried to write about the pain I felt and saw in her at times. 

I saw you in the trees today

The weeping winds held your arms at bay

Your limbs which once reached out in love

Were cuffed by rejection’s subtle shove

The same trees cuddled the fields of green

Clothed in blossoms and buds of spring

Lovely pink pastels and fuchsia born

Tender memories of pure love untorn

The heat and dust with summer’s scene

Befall the flowers of love serene

Seasons of warmth both nurture and test

The depths and strength of roots once blest

Colorful leaves you stretched to show

To grasp the needy winds that blow

And how they blew… your leaves did strew

Like teardrops in the gusts they flew

So now you stand with barren bark

Your frame kept still from chilling dark

The frayed twigs have curled in to ask

“Have I summoned my own love to task?”

Has the corridor of sharp wind and rain

Been the source of all your grief and pain

Your tree-top shakes an affirmed negation

From the depths of your trunk rises self-condemnation

Evening gathered a blinding black

While trees began to turn their back

Pinpricks of stars freckled the sky

The little lights welcomed your why

One final stretch of hope

Your lowest limbs attempt to cope

Weary twigs  to the heavens reach

Longing to graft the ambivalent breach

Then leaning on the eastern hills 

Stares a star whose brightness fills

The forest floor  cool with frost

Winter’s edge was all but lost

The rays of hope sent life to your limbs

Its heat and light your sorrow trims

The shadow cast merely reminds

Shades of grace you’re able to find

My branches and leaves have shared the same sun

In your shadows I dance and run

In your leaves wild spectrum I rejoice

Our limbs forever tangled in true love’s voice. 

Written for my wife on our 11^th anniversary

February 16^th 1997

Submitted for One Stop Poetry.  A Saturday celebration: Your Past.