about one year ago

i saw the tree with the lights in it.
in fact, i saw the trees with the lights in them.
in all of them.
one by one they lit up in front of me, sun exploding off the ice soaked branches in radiant bursts of orange and yellow and light against the cold blue morning sky.
even as i returned through the stiff snow covered sidewalk, the lights continued.
at the end i turned around, and there at the top, where the large tree lived,
all its branches gleaming loudly,
there the sun itself burst through.
if the tree had a heart, it would have been there,
with the sun piercing through and spilling out everywhere.
the rest of the way home the trees continued their sparkling display.
even the little sapling outside our kitchen window was a light.