Bone white

A small branch stripped of bark gleams in the grey air. Bone-white, I think. And retract the thought. The prominence of my own bones, and spinal osteoporosis, moves the word bone out of the interior designer’s catalogue and into the undertaker’s. Bone has lost its innocence for me.
At the top of the bare tree is a large nest. Whose interior decorator urged the bird or squirrel to take the red and white warning tape that barricaded us from fallen trees after last month’s windstorm? A nest that incorporates a warning.