A Problem In Trees

Before my window Agreeably There paused a green-skirted evergreen tree.So still she stands Till I ponder what cause To her flickering progress dictated pause (declared a pause).And distressed find Each lower bough Descending into a pool of snow.Snow ledging her eyebrows Her frosty vision Has charted the way from here with precision.

Trees walking are deliberate More, say, than humankind Our feet pace by to be in turn Bypassed by mind.

Trees take one step, and are content Having a single boot To give the toe to the hands of the loam And mildly turn ambition into root.

But don’t stay the little bands at night Trooping, when nobody knows or cares Over the warm undulations of the earth Until the hills roll out in stars.

[If a tree should move I suppose I’d miss it But my faith in the prospect remains implicit.]

From their buds the roses pop And the long day slinks to an end When will all this come to a stop This road, this road without a bend.The curlew calls upon its nest And I think of the girls I have known Oh curlew, the one that I loved best Comes to my mind fully blown.Cry then, for all past years blend And the pains of living abate Not mine to avert what the savage years send Though precisely what I await.