TheBanyanTree: THREE TREES

[smack58 at nycap.rr.com]

Went to the park with the dogs yesterday and saw the "three trees" that inspired this poem. They are at their peek of fall splendor (if I have already posed this, I don't remember, so please forgive me):

THREE TREES

Three trees stand in a row
... like sentinels
guarding the tennis courts in the park.


I watch them take turns 
In spring
bringing forth their buds
at different times according
to exposure
to the light
to the sun.


I watch them
in autumn
when the exposure 
to the elements--
the wind
the chill
the night frosts,
decides their dress 


and undress.


The first is quick
to change,
like a flash in the pan
a one night stand
brazenly spinning its glory
for all to see
in a moment
in a splash of time.


Then stands stripped and naked against the sky.


The second follows 
close behind
for now the weather
has an easier reach,
and the slow glow--
not as breathtaking
as the first
gives a different pleasure,
a slow drifting of the light
of the color
easing slowly into its nakedness.


The bare eye at first unaware of its undressing.


But the third remains
in its summer green 
long after the others,
living further against the wood
having been protected at its back
and until now to it's front
and slowly
carefully
as a virgin dresses
for her first
formal dance
the leaves
tenderly edge 
first with yellow 
then with gold 
only to spread
gently into red.


And then today 
at last 
in the morning 
in the mist
in the chill
with frost crunching beneath my feet,


I see her.


Full in her glory
at last
standing alone
among the gray hues
of the others...