does the forest sleep?

along the forest floor,
the vigilant underbrush
rustles almost inaudibly
for the next season to come.
the ebb and flow of
a questionable winter
reveals itself in the leaves
still attached to limbs,
arched and curled in the
positions in which they died.

with the consistency of
tissue paper, and just as
opaque in the shafts of
light sifting through the trees,
will they one day fall
to the requests of new birth?
why are they still present?
should the forest floor be
a mess of needles and cones,
or do the reminders of
last year signify that life
does not end in winter?

the crystalline sap of exposed
stubs, where wayward limbs
were recently hewn,
exposes itself to the whispering
air, aromatic enough to say
"there is life yet in me,
and i will be covered
in plume once again."
bears, it seems, are the
only ones truly succumbing
to hibernation.