You will need time.
Simple appearance
changes with the light,
weather, and season.
Colors shift; needles,
blossoms, nuts, seed pods
come and go.
Imagine the invisible.
Roots underground
mirror branches above.
Bark shields wood.
Reflect on the gifts:
shade, fuel, food, shelter,
beauty, wonder.
Consider the variety:
baobab, sequoia, palm,
almond, willow, sycamore,
olive, aspen, magnolia.
And here the poem shifts
to topics seemingly unrelated,
the odder the better to baffle
readers: the Byzantine empire
or Galapagos Islands, Cassiopeia,
Cetus, the table of elements, Donald
Duck, China’s Great Wall—all poets
fashion comparisons.
A sly allusion to a famous line adds
a nice touch, as do crunchy verbs,
murmuring metaphors, arcane words.
For an oak or cedar is more than a tree.
And a poem is not a piece of glass
but a wrestling match.
- To See a Poem in a Tree - 14th December 2022