this hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds
of uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ’thirty-eight) out of their rotting hearts
generations rise trying once more
to become the forest
just beyond them
tall enough to be called trees
in their youth like aspen a bouquet
of young beech is gathered
they still wear last summer’s leaves
the lightest brown almost translucent
how their stubbornness decorates
the winter woods
on this narrow path
ice holds the black undecaying
oak leaves in its crackling grip
oh it’s become too hard to walk
a sunny patch I’m suddenly
in water up to my ankles April