Impulsively white daffodils appear.
Magnolia trees with purple taste the light
before we’ve even ended the old year,
before we dream beneath the longest night.
The sun withdraws and sucks with it the spark
of life in leaves, so liquidambar fades
to honey-toned sienna hung on bark
of opal beige. The evergreen parades
its color – whorls of cypress, redwood domes
ingenious-leaved of needles made to drink
the fog that dawn-descends around our homes,
that whites our sky and muffles us. We think
of comfort, cuddle, turn in bed and sigh,
while trees uphold above our heads, the sky.