The Trees

Benoît Trimborn

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

Poems about trees. I wonder how many I will collect here. The trees always seem to be telling us something. I don't even think the non-poetic can deny that. This time they are encouraging us by example to put the past behind us and begin again. What was that poem a few months ago? Begin, by Brendan Kennelly. It's a recurring theme, and one that I seem to need to hear. The belief that I can indeed shake the old leaves off and begin afresh is utterly essential to my sense of hope. As long as I can start again - I will. Year after year, day after day, hour after hour, if need be. Afresh, every moment.

Love is Come Again

Benoît Trimborn

Love is Come Again

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
love lives again, that with the dead has been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
thinking that never he would wake again,
laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
he that for three days in the grave had lain,
quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving in pain,
thy touch can call us back to life again,
fields of hearts that dead and bare have been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

J.M.C. Crum

He is risen! Happy Easter!