Bare stumps of your branches
Hollow whistle of wind
In the gaps between them
Colourless bark covers you
In the dead of winter
You are still
Until one day
There comes
A rush of life
In the trilling on the trees
In the warmth of the sun
In the touch of a breeze
The force of inevitable change
In the swelling of the streams
And with your blossoms
Explodes life
Death cannot hold
If God loves a tree like this
How much more does He love me?
*Brother Lawrence was a XVII century French Carmelite monk who converted while watching a bare tree in the winter and thinking of it blooming in the spring.