Emerald Leaves

In the beginning you pushed your leaves out through your fingertips
    and they were brilliant and emerald
And with the breeze you touched my cheek, fondly and affectionately,
    curving down to me
    and with an emerald leaf you patted my shoulder and lifted my chin
   
And I coiled my toes around the grass and dandelions courting your roots
    that arched like low bridges above the ground.
I looked up to your highest branches,
    full of green while they swayed over me, skirting across the bright moon

And you became my protector and my guardian,
    and I laid against you in the night, and danced around you in the day

And I breathed in your scent of earth and life,
    until my lungs were full and covetous of your scent
    and would not release it from within them.
And so I remained full of you, and I allowed my eyelids to fall together
    until I could not hear your whispering, nor feel your warmth surround me.

And when I woke, there was no wind, and there were no whispers,
    and all there was were cracks and breaks and crashes and cold forever.
And there was ice along my lashes when I opened my eyes,
    for I was frozen and balled on the ground, and you were frozen there around me

For as I slept the rain had come, and with it the cold and chill,
    and they pelted and swept against you
    and they skulked along your body and branch until you were but hard and motionless,
    and you could not curve or sway, but shatter around me.

And so you did, as the ice weighed heavy on your limbs
    and transformed your kind fingers into cold and bitter blades,
    you broke and cracked and woke me to the pain of your breaking.

And your comforting scent, and your soft leaves have long since gone,
    changed and shriveled and washed away.

And you, my former protector,
    are now but a frozen ruin,
    a cold and hardened cage that will never thaw
But forever split and crash and echo around me,
    in the surrounding and sullen emptiness
Tangled inside the limbs that once swayed
    and celebrated with me as I danced
    beneath the brilliance of your emerald leaves.