Arboreal

The seedling too small to sway in the wind –
How frail is life when it first begins! –
Will as time flows and it grows and swells,
Hear the tolling of countless funeral bells.

The sapling's first halcyon snows –
A tremulous life in the bone-white glow –
Will, if it braves the bitter chill,
See a time again when all is still.

The flowering tree in the rising sun
Before the harvest has even begun
Knows that the fruit it will come to bear
Can not last long despite its care.

The summers gone and long since passed
Though slow to go never seem to last
And so hearing the end of another season sing
The tree marks off another ring.

It stands amongst the grassy graves,
Roots entrenched against the end of days,
But a stump and rings is all that's left,
They came and went and the tree is dead.