The Gray Tree Is Graced

I shot a winter photo

of the Camperdown Elm.

It is in Prospect Park

near the lake,

beside the boathouse.

It’s the one Marianne Moore

saved with a poem.

It was old then,

and thought dead.

It is twisty, short and gnarly.

Its two, heavy branches,

one suffering

a growing spiral fracture,

are supported

by hand carved

wooden crutches.

Leafless now,

enclosed by a good

wrought iron fence,

the gray tree is graced

by brown female cardinal

on a branches that

might be invisible,

if not for the scarlet

triangle of her beak.