Poems about Trees

This hub offers the reader a journey of rediscovery on the subject of trees through original poetry.

• Apricots and Crabapples, Cottonwoods and Pines and Chinese Elms are all represented!
• Poems about fall foliage and chainsaws and the deep woods too!

All Poetry Copyright Mindy Makuta (aka MyFairLadyah) Reprint with Permission

1. Locust Leaves
2. I Reach My Arms Up to the Sky
3. A Tree Gives Shade
4. Ninety Year Old Apricot Trees
5. I Love the Brilliant Colors of Fall
6. A Tree Grows Straight
7. A Face in the Tree
8. Chainsaws Buzz
9. The Chinese Elms
10. Cottonwood Cotton Floats and Billows
11. White Petals
12. The Pines
13. The Lone Pine
14. Beauty in Death of a Tree

I reach my arms up to the sky

The tree's canopy is wide and high

I imagine monkeys and parrots too

Who would not understand the confines of a zoo

I dig my bare toes into the earth

While the tree's leaves rustle with mirth

Would that I could create sweet food from the sun

As does the anchored tree with cycles never done

Feathery verdant locust leaves

Fan out to make their canopies

With sister trees growing close

Whose roots may intertwine below

Locust leaves like ferns up high

Nature wanted them nearer the sky

Graceful arcing branches dip

Rebound as wind directs their trip

Now the sparrows come to play

Peck the ground and dart and sway

Dainty copse of locust trees

Create abodes for birds like these

A tree gives shade and beauty too

Whether palm, mangrove or elm

As habitat for bird and shrew

And clearing pollutants from the realm

For bearing fruits surrounding seeds

To replenish trees upon the land

And filling many other needs

From inland forest to edge of sand

Inspired by the trees at San Geronimo Lodge - Taos NM

Ninety year old apricot trees

With fruit for the birds and blooms for the bees

As you walk beneath, pay attention

A fruit may drop to relieve the tree's tension

Then gather the golden orbs to eat

Or put some by for a jam that's sweet

I love the brilliant colors of fall

Purples and oranges and yellows burst

From the green forest 'ere winter's pall

For eons this has been rehearsed

To vibrant colors and then to browns

Still somewhat supple and then dry

The winds will speed the leaves to ground

Aiding life's cycles they comply

A tree grows straight until it bends

Going sunwards its space defends

Most times the tree will end up straight

Sun's love is granted; a normal state

In a tree outside my window many years ago

A face appeared among the leaves till the wind would blow

The visage of the old man there was comforting somehow

For weeks he'd look upon me, a friend upon the bough

But as the summer ended and leaves fell to the ground

My wise and friendly leaf man was nowhere to be found

The next year as the buds expressed their greenness on the tree

The leaves were juxtaposed anew and him I did not see

First Line Ripped from Today's Headline

Chainsaws buzz through storm debris

The detritus of many a tender tree

Just as leaves had dew's first blush

The heavy snow came down to crush

I pray that as the night goes dark

We are not met by an electric spark

From wires downed by broken limbs

The mixed messages of Nature's whims

On some of the trees found at Stone Mountain Lodge

The Chinese elms grow like weeds

The box elder maples have their bugs

Volunteers from bird dropped seeds

Many varied trees await your hugs

Cottonwood cotton floats and billows

In scattered vortices on the ground

As if someone attacked feather pillows

Feathers are flying without a sound

Version for a Romp

White petals, white petals from the crab apple tree

Will you make a tender snow in May just for me

Would you make me a carpet for barefooted pleasure

That I may romp upon measure for measure

To the left, to the right

The pines; the sovereign pines

Rise up from the earth to the light

In deepest darkest green painted lines

Rising off the plains unexpectedly

Surrounded by small horse farms

In the distance Pikes rises majestically

A perfect day; there are no clime alarms

Now scrub oak, creosote bushes appear

Amid the rolling grassy hills

Denver is far away yet very near

Here and there meandering bubbling rills

A scrawny pine lives alone

His brethren on a distant rocky crag

A way stop for the bird that's flown

A thousand miles a worm to snag

Through the dead tree's spires

The eastern sun is strong

I shield my eyes from the orb's fires

Else my vision will soon be gone

A perching tenement it is still

The avian lookouts have keen view

Of movement below to snag their fill

Branches yet support their ounces few

But see, a shock of green exists

To catch the warming western winds

So death this lonely branch resists

'Til Nature, this life-lease rescinds