Winter Trees

Henry Farrer (American, 1843–1903).  

Winter Scene in Moonlight (detail), 1869. 

Watercolor and gouache on white wove paper;

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Winter Trees

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)