A tree doesn't know it is miserable...
A green dome
in treeless country:
the graveyard at Menlo.
I first saw a heron
sit motionless there
for hours.
The wind plays barber
to the beeches,
clips their crowns.
Between lake and plains
trees point to
the sky's altitude.
Trees are constant negotiators:
roots firmly in the ground, they write
their slow signatures into the sky.
If you lose your way
near the sea
follow the inland pointing trees.
When the deluge receded
Noah discovered the arc
was moored to the top of an olive tree.
First step in dreaming:
sleep under a tree’s
dark and dazzling canopy.
Second step:
let your dreams build nests
among its leaves.
Third step:
let trees teach you
how not to know you're miserable.
On the tightly-
knit branches
young crows perform cartwheels.
The words sycamore
sassafras acacia
sway and rustle.
The words chain-saw
power-tool axe
shriek and thud.
To protect the lovely Daphne
the gods changed her
into a laurel tree
but their best gift was to Philemon and Baucis:
to become a lime and an oak
standing side by side forever.
Trees caress every breeze
with thousands
of fingers.
At storm time they have
powerful leanings
towards each other.
The poet Hikmet was a nut tree
in an Istanbul Park:
neither his beloved nor a policeman noticed.
In the Garden of Eden
(Anonymous, Cologne 1485)
even the cherry trees make love.
My thoughts like flocks
of starlings chattering
in the crown of the neighbour’s ash tree.
The elder at the end of the garden:
in summer it is all
for the birds.
In autumn it is festooned
with cobwebs,
spiders’ mock suns.
Among trees
the most haunting music
is played on wind instruments.
But sometimes if you listen closely
there is also
the most perfect silence.
A poem from Eva Bourke