Autumn Wind

Photo Credit: Anne Asbury

The Wind runs cold fingers through my hair
I lean back, opening to it.

The trees rock back and forth
Stripped of artifice
And ornament

Their shining leaves fall away
In the rough embrace
Until at last they stand,

Naked to the eyes of the sun.

When there are no more ways to hide
The dark bark inside
The mismatched and broken branches,

When the sweet sap is all,
The essence of all I am and can be.
Will you see

My limbs 
Curved and proud--
Or gnarled and bare

With no new spring to come?