Old snow freshened with fallen leaves is what calls to me on a walk in woods this morning. 

Here's my poem inspired beeches. Written a couple of years ago, it was first published in Kindred, Issue 10.

Winter Beech

It’s cold in the mirror these mornings

I wake up to this face with new lines

laying tracks over loosening skin –

it’s cold in the woods as I walk into wind

shaking the bony limbs of hardwoods

where I am learning to believe in beech leaves,

diaphanous in winter, lasting so long on their branches

they let go by accident, falling into footprints of hikers, dogs, deer –

how they shimmer on snow, lighting this way into the woods

like gold leaf brushed on whitest blue canvas, showing me

how any release may land in catastrophe

or something improvisational as grace –

if I say yes I am aging, aging

I may never stop being

how beauty is

yes

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2016