Some Trees by John Ashbery
These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance
To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try
To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.
And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges
A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.
Comments
"puzzling light"
I can just see the shifting leaves.
Funny, I originally thought Ashbery was a painter, since this poem seems to put images so vividly in my mind of a strand of trees. Turns out he wanted to be a painter early on.
It was hard for me to appreciate the poem. I had to work at it, but liked it from a very cerebral-visual space. Hope that makes sense. Thanks Renee.
Lucy