The trees can keep their secrets
New poetry from Corrie Commisso
Winter has settled in again.
The trees are naked now, branches silhouetted against a gray sky like rivers of spilled ink, the fullness of summer long consumed by the bonfires of autumn.
But there’s one tree—an oak, I think—still stubbornly clinging to brown, withered leaves. Gnarled hands that have seen a season but refuse to let go, as though their curled edges still have something left to give. I can’t decide if it’s futile or noble.
Science has theories about trees that don’t shed their leaves in winter.
Marcescence.
Self-preservation, they say. A buffer for new growth, from the heavy weight of snow and ice that bends tree branches to kiss the ground, from the hungry jaws of foragers that feast on new buds before they have a chance to see light.
But nobody really knows why some trees linger in past seasons while the world around them resigns itself to the deep sleep of winter, when every other tree is letting go, casting off, shedding things that no longer give life.
Maybe the trees have desires.
Does a tree gasp and shudder when the last leaf falls? Does it mourn the fading of the light as its cells slow and still, suspended in animation like bubbles in glass?
Does a tree know that it is not dying in winter, but waiting?
It’s an inward season, winter.
A breath held.
We blanket ourselves with familiar comforts to counter the silence of uncertainty.
And yet even here, in the in-between, there is the hum of life—a vibration that hints at spring.
Growth happens in the dark, while we sleep.
A seed buried in the earth.
A child growing in the womb.
An idea yet to be spoken.
So we wait.
We wait for the first warm slivers of sunlight that signal waking.
For the acorns the squirrels forgot
to crack open, take root, push their green shoots to the surface.
For the courage to let old leaves fall to the ground,
to whisper thank you, thank you, thank you
as the earth absorbs their death to feed new life.
Perhaps old leaves have something left to give after all.
The trees can keep their secrets.
I’ve seen many winters, and lived a hundred lives in the waiting.
Spring has never failed to arrive.
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Very much enjoyed this poem. A feast.