Tree Poems

... ran across a poem by Norwegian Rolf Jacobsen ("Trees in Autumn") that reminds me of one I wrote years ago, "Trees" (1996). We are expressing similar views, I think, but his reaches a simpler conclusion.

Trees in Autumn

When the summer's gone out of them
we can see what they are made of.
The vesseled maze, the spreading beams,
strength or helplessness, bone or cartilage. \
Defenseless. Now
we see through them.


Here is mine:

Trees

Its a bad time for trees,
a secret half locked deep in the ground,
an aerial half vulnerable
to the whims of arrogant men.
Their only defense (and it has always been so),
a seasonal diaspora of seeds,
when the Many seize the late summer winds
and leave the One behind.