Black lace

Winter trees,
their naked branches
writing poems
like promises
on the skyline.

Each word,
every rhyme
part of the pattern
in the intricate tracery
of pure black lace.

They hide
the new green
of spring deep
as a curtsey, a promise
in petticoats.

So we look up,
strain to read
the lines of poetry
in bare branches
lacing the horizon.

'Not yet, not yet;
the poems chide,
'A promise given
is a promise kept'
and the branches

two-step in the breeze.

BLACK LACE