The Vines

The cold air of fall has killed the vines for a season
and only their skeletal fingers, long and twisting, remain.
Like this, with the red clapboards shining through,
they look benign, easy to ignore for another season,

And so, too often, they are, when

this is the time to battle them with vigor,
when their sinuous throats are exposed
and they are easily killed, when the dry linmbs
can be cut to the ground, their murderous flesh

exposed. and left to die.

But for now, we will look at them and think them weak,
and let them gather strength from the soil
that feeds them, and prepares them for another season,
thinking them dead, while all the while they are preparing

for the final assault.

About this poem.

I took the picture a couple of years ago. And today that whole entryway has crashed to the ground. The vines won.

Too often, when we have a struggle in our life, whether it is physical, emotional or spiritual, and we are granted a break, we tend to act as though we are cured. We coast. While the roots of that struggle still live, and wait for a moment of weakness.

It took me forever to understand that if I had the good sense to fight those struggles when I was strong, it did me far more good than to leave them alone and fight them only when they came to life again.

And they always do.

Tom