What the trees tell us

SOME TREES

by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

*************************

Ashbery writes: “...the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.”

(photo: taken from one of the meadows that overlooks Lake Tahoe that we hiked a day after Thanksgiving. Alone and bereft of leaves, the tree stands with pride and dignity. )

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