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.
