Tree at Cape Kiwanda, Pastel, by John Cummings
WINTER COMES TOO SOON
One dying tree stands
like a lonely sentinel,
guarding his deserted ground.
Snow falls, covering
that ground like a shroud.
Can a tree feel dismay?
Dead wood has its uses,
but that’s something
it will never know.
On its final day it can’t ask
how it came to be,
or why it had to end this way?
But on this dismal night,
my compassion for a tree
is wasted sympathy.
Winter makes a fool of me.
_____________
George Freek
Review by Jared Pearce
I suppose, as the speaker says, we are foolish to try to understand how a tree might or might not think or be, but, then again, as the speaker proves, it’s lots of fun to sometimes be foolish.
Review by Claire Scott
A poem of winter and death. A sense of despair as a lone dying tree guards “his deserted ground” and “snow falls, covering that ground like a shroud.” I wonder if “snow” and “shroud” are a bit overused. Then the projection of the speaker which deepens the meaning. I like the existential questions and the rhyming of “tree,” “sympathy” and “me.” “Dismal” echoes “dying” “deserted” and “dismay.” I like all the alliteration. The last line is mocking and wonderful. The speaker has moved back to his own life, but richer for the experience of empathy. I am not sure about the title. It seems winter really brings the speaker closer to himself in a good way.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
There is a precious lesson in this poem, in these days of dying trees and compassion for our Mother Nature which some (with an overinflated ego) believe is dying by our hands. The lesson is the seasonality of change, its tidal coming and going, its planetary perspective and interstellar rationale – all things which are way beyond human scope and understanding. Only one rhetorical question remains: to whom should we convey that sympathy so wasted on a tree? For whom does the bell toll? Who is really at risk of not surviving the upcoming season?