Trees in Poetry & Prose

photo by Maureen Shaughnessy © Native Trees Neither my father nor my mother knew the names of the trees where I was born what is that I asked and my father and mother did not hear they did not look where I pointed surfaces of furniture held the attention of their fingers and across the room they could watch walls they had forgotten where there were no questions no voices and no shade Were there trees where they were children where I had not been I asked were there trees in those places where my father and mother were born and in that time did my father and mother see them and when they said yes it meant they did not remember What were they I asked what were they but both my father and my mother said they never knew -W.S. Merwin©

photo by Mika Hiironniemi © Breath Tree, gather up my thoughts like the clouds in your branches. Draw up my soul like the waters in your root. In the arteries of your trunk bring me together. Through your leaves breathe out the sky. - J. Daniel Beaudry © published in Nature in Legend and Story

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. -Kahlil Gibran, from Sand and Foam

photo by courambel on flickr © Under the Walnut Tree When I face what has left my life, I bow. I walk outside into the cold, rain nesting in my hair. All the houses near me have their lights on. Somewhere, there is a deep listening. I stand in the dark for a long time under the walnut tree, unable to tell anyone, not even the night, what I know. I feel the darkness rush towards me, and I open my arms – Lynn Martin © From Blue Bowl (Blue Begonia Press)

Alone with myself The trees bend to carress me The shade hugs my heart. - by Candy Polgar © Woods I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me. - Wendell Berry © from Collected Poems (North Point Press)

photo by Ric McArthur © Fern-Leafed Beech This tree listened when my husband died. I leaned my head against its trunk and cried. No words passed, but I took its strength and knew that life at last secretly transforms until what is seen becomes unseen, and what has been is still to be. -Moyra Caldecott©

a few other links:
Solitary Trees
find other poets' work at Gratefulness.org
Trees in Myth and Legend
Spirit of Trees