Joining and Parting

The solid slender hop hornbeam tree,
also known as ironwood, with its hop-like blooms,
and dark green leaves, obscure,
among the lobe-leafed oak and maple tree.

while, slipping in with folded leaves on supple stems,
the woodbine wends its way around its bark.
The coiling stem en wreaths the slender trunk,
fans out its five-leafed vine among the limbs.

A buttress for the eager, reaching, grasping tendrils,
and what is the consummation of this stretch?
A string of rubies on an arboreal chain,
foresee time when hornbeam and woodbine part

While Queen Anne's lace aureole clutches into a bundle,
and daisies drop their petals, curled, on the ground,
the woodbine, also called Virginia creeper, turns,
reddened, scarlet, crimson, blushing, waving boldly in the breeze.

The ironwood, hornbeam, as we know, turns yellow ocher,
dropping beryl green foliage while, unheeded in the grass,
oblivious to the ruby gem-like fivefold leaves' departure,
woodbine's remnant mourns, left leafless on the trunk.