A Tribute to High School English

There is a tree, bowed and bent as if some boy had run up its spine. But there is no ice storm here just the snow, which baptizes and the wind making naked limbs that leaves once covered, so that the tree bends, not broken by blooded youth but bared and weighed out by winter. With branches held out as if in supplication, or understanding. For nakedness reveals truth. And what would we swing for anyway? To reach high, glimpse visions, and fall again? Better yet to stand where trees have broken themselves where the winds strips leaves and faces. To see and yet remain. Then perhaps, to bow.