trees

Today Riverlark left a lovely comment on my blog. A poem to celebrate my new banner, which I think is an absolutely lovely idea! The poem is beautiful, by W.S. Merwin; a poet I have never come across before, and the sentiment is so perfect I thought I would put the poem here for all to see...

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches

I think perhaps I will treat myself to this book, Amazon says "Merwin is not only profoundly anti-imperialist, pacifist and environmentalist, but also possessed by an intimate feeling for landscape and language and the ways in which land and language interflow" Sounds like a good read to me!

(And it's a good opportunity for a tree picture too, you can never have too many tree pictures can you. This one is growing in the park by my old house in the city center, taken last year in winter at dusk on my way home. The park had lots of blackbirds, starlings, wood pigeons and one day a sparrow hawk. Not sure which one the bird in the picture is, but it was having a good old sing.)