It is like a fragment of music

Glissando slipping through the room

There is a strange almost consolation

That impels the assumption

Of an onset of gloom.

But I reject this as

Not the way it needs to be.

I know there is no logic

No reason for it -- justification even.

But it is the way I sense

Things can be. As if it were

An afternoon sun brushed

With the brightness of hope.

I feel sure that one day

The sun will shine for you

I know there are days when you feel

That there is no remission

No relenting from the desolation.

That there seems to be nothing

More than a desiccated wind blown tree

Bereft of any tiny fragment of comfort --

Stretching out on an unending desert

As far as the eye can see

Lost beyond some far horizon

In an endless frozen land.

Yet perhaps it isn't so.

At least it doesn't have to be.

We're told that life is

A journey full of change and variety

You never know when you'll run

Into a different piece of reality.

The curve of a beautiful woman

Or in your case a bronzed young man

Supple in his symmetry -- But this

Is not what I'm referring to.

It begins with a glance

Maybe the promise of a smile.

Someone willing to risk opening

A window to their inner mind.

Either way hopefully that there is

A memory a fragment bright

Caught in a rainbow light

To warm our every tomorrow.

There is a different perception --

Which can be found in another tree

And one day I hope that you will

Explore it with me

It is no young sapling you understand.

It has been there for a generation at least

Maybe more.

When young, it's growth was strained

Pruned, tethered and trained

Pointed in a direction to which it should go.

There was belief that time would soon

Whip it around the iron work to endure

In a pattern that would lift in the warmth

Of faith to nurture and take it past tomorrow.

I look now and see it in the depth of winter.

No foliage softens the pattern of its turning.

The sap deeply stored

In the base of the mother tree.

I trace the pattern, unsure of what I see

I sense inside it there, a relaxed tension

Within the iron fretwork encumbered

Sinews gathering strength stretch out

Encircle and embrace the beginnings

Of an early Spring -- a growth of faith

That warms your heart and lets us share

The memory of a smile.

So if for some reason

We become separated

Let this one image be a bridge between us

The boughs of the Curling Tree

Reaching out dissolving the distance

Removing the partitions

Separating you and me.

Unrestricted by the seasons

The margins and the knotted branches

The meandering, gnarled bark --

The mother nested in the warmth

Of new seasons, new hopes

New dimensions of our being

And a caring warmth for a shared

Vision and the love of our futurity.

                             By John Hall

            To Danielle