The tree trembles with
fronds of silver, reflecting rainbows.
It is a sacrifice now, to gods
of family and winter.
Ephemeral in its tinsel beauty,
transient as our lives,
the fragile ornaments each year
lovingly repacked, next December
reinstated to significance -
the tree returned, a drying corpse,
to the garden dump.
Janice Windle
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/seasonal-poems-christmas-tree/