Snow Codes (Poetry)

(From The White Poems)

The trunks rise arrow-straight
in tight formation — stiff
with frozen sap — bark coded
with crisp snow messages.

Each white crystal a microdot
of information imprinted —
set in the brown skin — and
telling Winter’s secrets

to a world that cannot yet read
the sequence of its forming —
how the layers cling less random
than imagination might suppose.

And light bounces meaning
tree to tree — brilliant communications
clear as words unspoken —
a cryptic set of clues.