Cherry Tree

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,

On the old road where all that passed are dead,

Their petals strewing the grass as for a wedding,

This early May morn where there is none to wed.

Edward Thomas

In her gnarled sleep it begins

though she seems

as unmoving as the statue

of a running man: her

branches caught in a 

writhing, her trunk

leaning as if in mid-fall.

When the wind moves

against her grave body

only the youngest twigs

scutter amongst themselves.

But there's something going on

in those twisted brown limbs,

it starts as a need

and it takes over, a need

to push

push outward

from the center, to

bring what is not

from what is, pushing

till at the tips of the push

something comes about

and then

pulling it from outside

until yes she has them started

tiny bumps

appear at the end of twigs.

Then at one they're all here,

she wears them like a coat

a coat of babies,

I almost think that she

preens herself, jubilant at

the thick dazzle of bloom,

that the caught writhing has become

a sinuous wriggle of joy

beneath her fleece.

But she is working still

to feed her children,

there's a lot more yet,

bringing up all she can

a lot of goodness from roots

while the petals drop.

The fleece is gone

as suddenly as it came

and hundreds of babies are left

almost too small to be seen

But they fatten, fatten, get pink

and shine among her leaves.

Now she can repose a bit

they are so fat, She cares less

birds get them, men

pick them, human children wear them

in pairs over their ears

she loses them all.

That's why she made them,

to lose them into the world, she

returns to herself,

she rests, she doesn't care.

She leans into the wind

her trunk shines black

with rain, she sleeps

as black and hard as lava.

She knows nothing about babies.

Thom Gunn. 

Both poems from Trees Be Company: An Anthology of Poetry.

Edited by Angela King and Susan Clifford for Common Ground.