Whispered Messages

Pine speaks of frost bitten dawns,
while oaks write verses in circling twine.
Maple's secrets dance in red shadows;
each leaf, a verse, an enciphered root.

Coniferous realms echo their frost-laden
wishes—outlines of who we were drawn
in bark, inscriptions lost to the rain,
glossed over by age, inkbaths in sap.

Beneath groves of ancient whispers,
check the undergrowth—there lies your horizon in fact,
an unfolded map of shadows across horizons extended,
paths not taken—like the language of elm.