Winter’s Choice

Poem

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

The first bones of winter
stare at me in the naked forest

Fallen trees scatter my trail
watched by complacent pines

still upright in their fitted skulls of snow
Branches freeze in mid-reach for my touch

They don’t know I, too, am cold
My head wilted by guilt, I walk faster

before the new snow casts judgement
But before I leave, a cardinal splits the air

- like an impossible choice