SYCAMORES: NOVEMBER NIGHT...

A stoic honor guard of ghostly sycamores
stands gleaming in the dark November night
in silent, curving rows along the water course.

Their bleached arms rising upward to the sky,
they remain unmoved by bitter winds or
cold that rises from the waters at their feet.

They stand impassive as the guards at Buckingham,
listening but not judging as the moving water
sings its plaintive, painful song of pending winter.

---Rose Moore, from "Valley Songs"
    Nov. 1992