The Tree

Colder is the shade when you sit at ease
under branches that have no fruits to give,
grass buried in snow does not lay to live,
neither crows feasting, beaks wide, stare to please.

What trail was taken we cannot think back
daubed with slime by the flags of a bleak bound,
for like the world, the mind onward moves round,
yet crease on each face can be met thereat.

I wish not to cry in this wide, dismal place,
my tears would only become a foul fen,
that a pig for sleep, others will embrace.

How tall is this tree, higher than a ben,
and how low do we lie at the base
with strait eyes fixed, still beneath it again.