Under the Chestnut Tree
By Ronald A Busse

I search for solace

Through its canopy of colorless shade

There I sit

In quiet contemplation bare back kissing craggy trunk

Able to reach

Up to almost touch a forearm-thick bottom limb

Those who sat

Here long before me are also present

Spirits rooted

Disturbingly in the Chestnut’s closely layered branches

A rib cage

Overprotective like the arm-branch just out of my reach

Alive but frail

Brittle slate-gray leaves cling to those lower limbs

Only leaves left

The surrounding tree types have long gone skeletal

Those that fall

Hold dry memories of those gone in the still air

One lands on my thigh

I whisk it away my nipples petrify I go back inside chilled