XXV. Group Photo with Winter Trees · Greg Williamson

These were my neighbors. It's a big group pose:,

On mist-gray skies, the stark, black branches etch

Horizon, lawn, in loose haphazard rows.

As if in tin, or as in s o m e old s k e t c h ,

That's The Great Bob. And that's our good Queen Paul

Whose lines, whose every nuance was precise,

With Champagne Anne and Rick the dog. They're all

But faded now. I've seen the trees in ice,

Decked out (Liz, too, who helped me do the plumbing),

But I'll be gone when their spring blooms and scatters

Even the children. And, God, they're all becoming.

S h a d e s , a s t h e n e w l e a v e s turn t o o t h e r matters.