growing out of a wall

Poem: Can You Imagine?

 

For example, what the trees do

not only in lightning storms

or the watery dark of a summer night

or under the white nets of winter

but now, and now, and now -- whenever

we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine

they just stand there looking the way they look

when we're looking; surely you can't imagine

they don't dance, from the root up, wishing

to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting

a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly

more shade -- surely you can't imagine they just stand there loving every

minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings

of the years slowly and without a sound

thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,

and then only in its own mood, comes

to visit, surely you can't imagine

patience, and happiness, like that.

 

-- Mary Oliver

Done