Looking Back
by P.H. Wise

Hard, dull, cracked brown bark;
Green, green moss growing in the cracks;
An old child’s tree-house falling off it,
Boards rotten through and soggy with rain;
The old tree looms large in memory,
But it’s less large here looking at it..

Beneath a dreary February sky,
The withered old tree is covered
in spring leaves
and fragrant, white flowers.