birds shake rain from wings, 
the wind speaks in the trees 
split leaf casings dance  

withholding from hungry leaves 
a dawn breakfast of sunlight  

Copyright 2025 Brenda Davis Harsham

Notes: Every year the trees are bare until leaf casings form a dense green rain, and the forest’s canopy weaves itself anew. In today’s photograph, if you look carefully, you can see swollen leaf casings hang like bells at the ends of branches.

Writing Tip: Many poets write about green — if you’re trying to find your voice or narrow your focus, consider how other poets wrote about the subject. Here are a few tastes I sipped like tea as I contemplated whether my poem was finished.

From Green Things Growing:

“O the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!
How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing;
In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight
Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.”
— Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

From Green Symphony:

“I am a glittering raindrop
Hugged close by the cool rhododendron.
I am a daisy starring
The exquisite curves of the close-cropped turf.”
— John Gould Fletcher

From Autumn River Song:

“The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.”
— Li T’ai-po (tr: Hamil)

From Greening Glade:

“hatching, spawning,
budding, birthing.
All the world has
a buzz and pulse…”
— Brenda Davis Harsham