You recall the vine's infantile form,
fresh and newfangled,
tendrils unfolding along the virgin fence,
running the span with fluency,
capsules flush and full with new life-
frantic and aflame with fortuity-
to conceive and flower in fruition
a vernal dance of kith and kin.
You recognize same vine in dotage,
brown and bedraggled,
persisting upon the fenceline,
pods emptied of seed long ago
feeble and friable-
in wait for winter frost to set them free-
to tumble on the frozen soil
and putrefy in their dissolution.
But old vines will not crumble,
tension fastened in stiff tendrils-
they tarry as fossils,
as admonitions to future's sprouts:
this is your finality.
