Page 78 - Vol. VI #2

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The Comfort of Summer Trees
After winter ghosts and frost-sheared elms have been exorcised, the frozen silence
and floes of grieving have melted, a lush canopy appears in full leaf,
limbs drape their heavy foliage
over streets crisscrossing old neighborhoods
alive with the singing of phoebes and locusts, the commotion of termites, the air
perfumed with cut grass mingled with mold. All is softness now,
even the bark-skin beneath your fingers,
and loopy roots shining like snakes among myrtle.
Suddenly—a city of solace, its passageways lined with the generosity of maples
and arching birches, whose tiny leaves shiver confetti against the summer sky.
susan dworski nusBaum