Steve Berman Potery

All Winter the Trees

All winter the trees have been reading the news
from the underground press,
and listening in on the gossip of starlings
huddled along outlying branches.
Now the weather has shifted
and the cold facts are all in.
The winter’s sighs and whispers
patiently gathered, stored in the roots,
have begun to flow with the rising sap
informing the shapes of the new leaves
and coloring the catkins.
But I, so long deaf
to the murmurings of the understory
and having ignored the tickling
of minuscule insects, the small talk
of worms whose defecating makes
the soil that holds my roots,
what have I gleaned to feed the life
that struggles to surface now
in this branching sunlight

Steve Berman
Grants Pass OR
Spring 2020