Barbara Attaway - Sentinels

They stand as sentinels against azure storms
Assured as most storms of life, it's supposed
Although bared of dress, although naked as jays
Winter's trees umbrella from worst of those

Emptied of warmth, why stand themselves here
None rest beneath, cold is this grayness
Determined, enduring Hail's hiss, they stay
Limbs upturned, beg the sun from her shyness

These brown-barked sentinels recall blue-green days before
With soft nests of down in lofty leaved reaches
Where bodies there under sparkled in prisms
When leaf-scattered-light danced on now barren benches

They stand as sentinels against azure storms

Barbara Attaway

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sentinels/