Back to the trees!
          As the season pass I keep to my determination to look closely at the changes that I see in the trees which surround me (well, on one side) as I drink my after-swim cup of tea.
          Spring has produced quite a few pages of notes, but not many poems.  This poem is based on ideas in my notebook and it links to thoughts that seem to go through many of my 'Tree' poems.
          The basic idea in this poem came from simple observation.  The newly laid concrete which now surrounds the surviving trees in my local leisure centre is an idea canvas to pick up the shadows of the trees.  I was surprised to see that the shadows did not exactly correspond to the actual trees.  The shadows were as if there was not vegetation on the branches at all, just the jagged lightning / of twisted trunks - the light seems to be ignoring the new growth entirely.  When I looked more closely I could see that there was a sort of blurring to some of the branches which had new leaves on them, the shadow of which reminded me of the depiction of sound waves - those vertical lines threaded together by a horizontal median line.
          I am also fascinated by the speed of growth.  The trees look different every day now that spring is accelerating, but our lives are too fast to see or hear the growth while it is happening and we are observing.  That is the paradox that I try to suggest in the last few lines.
          This is a sonnet like poem and I worked to keep the lines to the necessary 14 because I felt that the form had something to say about the content.

New leaf

The too-small, rubbled green has

not found fulcrum taut enough

to bend around in moving air. 

The season’s grind and push thrusts

decoration on the twigs; stuck on

as if to give the right impression

for the time of year.

The sun attempts to scorn such ghostly growth:

stark contrasts thrown by midday glare

on blank cement are jagged lightning

of twisted trunks – but branches now can

shadow etch as the articulating growth

draws sound waves on hard ground

for eyes to hear what dull, closed ears cannot.

 I wonder if this poem is too obscure and the central (for me) image of the shadowy sound wave too difficult to discern without explanation?  Not sure.  Perhaps I'll read this one to the Poetry Group and get a reaction from them.