10 Poems about Trees
A Tree is a Poem : Introduction
A tree is a poem, a gift, an offering from the earth. When I come across a sapling that's fresh out of the seed I light up because it's a gift and in pristine condition. Oak tree saplings give me a particular buzz because I grew up with big oaks and to see a tiny specimen reaching for the sun and air is to see a giant in a few hundred years time, awesome yet humble.
A tree takes everything thrown at it and comes back for more. Their ability to withstand the foulest storms, weeks of baking sun and the odd deluge or two is inspiring.
To top it all they allow birds to build nests in their branches and twigs, up where the light filters through packed leaves or in a fork angled to hold the messiest of nests.
Without the vast forests breathing out oxygen there would be no beautiful planet.The Tree of Life is a true symbol! These poems are created from and dedicated to all sorts of trees.
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
Walt Whitman
——————————————
With A Beech
You can feel its generosity,
contentment and relief
as the wind comes questioning
all its ever been.
You know why it stretches
striving for the light
biding its time now like a giant
rewarded with a secret.
You decide to push against
the skin on which lovers might
declare their names. What
are you hoping for today?
_________________________________________________________
Tree
There was mist thick enough
to get lost in, dry stone wall
swallowed up in grey.
The breeze revealed the tree
that turned the field green
then veiled it again
as though we’d never seen.
______________________________________________________________
Old Oak at Apley Head
Scars, scratch marks on rough bark, a thick limb
lost, grounded like a ruin. I walk around its fat bole
over bulging roots that clench field sides, the invisible
life feeding all quercus sees: power lines, spires, cloud,
a watery flow of traffic glinting like small fish.
The quiet girth of a king, shadowy textured skin,
the past on show, the future hidden inside yet here
now, devoid of trivia, season after season a love
of the profound comes up out of ordinary ground.
______________________________________________________________
Gothic Alder
This silhouette, gestures
tapering away to part angry cloud
is a totem of twilight.
The broken toothed
fat man walks his muzzled dog, a Hitchcock extra
when bats appear, and spits untruths into the night.
Magpies have done the blackbird in
and clacker the news from shady sycamore
that they'll do it again.
The beck rushes on, a dark panic of blood,
its nutrient garbage a gurgling throat constructed
and constant under an ancient stone bridge, collapsing
into machine dredged sand.
Run the gauntlet of shadows in
the haunt of drunks
and the lord of Kettlethorpe Hall, feeding phantom hounds.
_________________________________________________________
Birch Under Grey Cloud
On a red brick wall bonsai fashion, roots
feeling through to the other side
where a yard collects junk, dozing dogs and shadows
already here from tomorrow’s sun.
A satellite of ray and rain, its transmitted story of green
listened to by damp doves come down from dripping pine
to walk the city wall. What shall we do? Inform
this little tree, unreal as the man singing arias upstairs
that forests may fall and we never hear?
______________________________________________________________
Near Seckar Woods
These trees want to draw me in.
Their dreamed up routes might stretch
forever onto a plateau
of gorse, broom and woody heather,
the varying lives we sometimes crave.
It’s the wood end succulence, the suntrap's
skin that holds hierarchies, archangels,
burdock, campion and a troupe of dancing gnats
in and out of light like flaming bits of love.
Height of summer and birds are learning
by the hour what works to perfection
we reach when we die.
They caught God’s particle today the day
each thing had its happening just before and
after I knew me, him and the answering trees.
______________________________________________________________
Two Highland Trees
In a snowmelt dawn
only water and rock
and two following.
I am there now
or was, in a glen
of our making
crossed by ravens
who spoke gaelic.
It’s romantic
far from Achintree,
or was,
even now thinking
of the crazy Scot,
weeping from wood smoke.
You want the two trees
in a song, or dancing
arms held high
music flowing
like a stream, even now.
_____________________________________________________________
Haiku
Why can't we decide?
One young tree has flame enough
to light a mountain!
______________________________________________________________
You May Want To read More Poems
- Haiku - The Art of Capturing Nature
Haiku are three line poems that reflect the state of nature. This article looks at how to compose haiku and gives an insight into the history.
Catalonian Mountain With Trees
That blue
the vultures spiral
is a life of the voice
and orangey rock
holds you
clueless
on a slope of whispers.
Scented pine
you enter, emerging
with a dozen words
echoing solitude
a figure
someone views
and calls
as the weight
of the mountain frees you up.
_______________________________________________________________
Distant Wood
Over in the cool deep green leaves breathing
the mad world’s air. The pig farm floats in mist
and rain has made a river of the day. Swallows
preen inside like neglected tourists.
Ask yourself why you don’t walk out
of this compound you’ve built to sit on roots
a big beech extends into sand and stone,
trapped in freedoms of light and mind.
And later crows folding the fields under black wings
will roost in relieved trees. Repeated bliss.
_____________________________________________________________
More Poetry Here
- How To Analyse A Poem For Exams Or Pleasure - Part 2
Part 2 of how to analyse a poem deals with rhyme, metaphor, meaning and much more. For GCSE students there is evaluation,anthology comparison and essay writing. - 10 Bird Poems
Original poems about birds. How different birds inspire different kinds of poetry. - Poems For M.C. Escher
M.C. Escher created artworks of great beauty and rich, illusive design. These poems are inspired by his graphic, highly unusual masterpieces.
This Classic Story Will Inspire You
Copyright chef-de-jour@Hubpages
Help stop plagiarism. Please contact the author if you suspect this original article has been stolen.
© 2012 Andrew Spacey