Solemnity

 

Lila Robinett Tindall

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If you undress me 

from happiness: layers 

of green and glad: sunshine’s 

summoned, like a dress 

fallen around my ankles, 

do you find 

my skin cold? 

 

Do you find 

I smell like damp

pages of oak leaves 

rotten by springtime,  

or coils of scales 

against the bank 

of this stream 

sleeping off the frost 

laced in the air?  

 

The chilled 

brook of me 

still laughs as it skips 

over fragments 

of frozen mountains. 

 

Look, through bare 

branches, can’t you see 

the snowfall better? 

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