Voices in Trees

This poem is one I wrote about two years ago, but I recently decided to revise it. It's a villanelle called Voices in Trees. It doesn't even compare to Theodore Roethke's "The Waking," but, hey, what can you do?


The leaves carry our voices though we make no sound;
the silence fills the gaps between us in the air.
It is beneath the woven branches where I knew I found

a slight change in the fractured light that falls around.
Your words rest on your tongue, and it is now that you dare
the leaves to carry our voices. You still make no sound.

I train my eyes only to make contact with the ground--
afraid to look up and discover you not sitting there.
But it was beneath the woven branches that I knew I found

the reason why I always saw myself more bound
to your silent presence, and why you couldn't bear
for the leaves to carry our voices though we never make a sound.

I discovered your lack of presence when the pound
of silence danced through the trees into my ear.
Then beneath the woven branches I knew I found

a way to let go of all the moments that surround
two years of my memory, until I learn where
the leaves carry our voices. So I listen for their sound
beneath the woven branches trying to remember what I found.