Looking up at bare limbs stripped clean of leaves on a wintery day

when the wind wailed a prelude for the procession of March,

I saw the trees shift, branches reaching for what they couldn’t hold.

The movement made my feet wonder if we were upright or falling

and my hands replied quickly with a grab to the door frame

to show Gravity we were not her toy, though what the trees were

doing defied all I know of earth’s spin and the nature of wood,

in the same way, I suppose, that Nijinsky defies rigor mortis. 

Dana Hughes  ©  2.29.14