TREES
In years past I’ve laid my hand
On many a smooth-barked tree
On many a mountain trail
And looked up to shallow-rooted
Pines standing stately and tall.
Like Rob Frost I’ve envied the birches
That bend under burdens of snow
In graceful compliant submission,
Then rise up again in the spring
To shake their new leaves in the sun.
Now it’s limb-lopped but upright
Old skeletal trees that I notice
On country roads or in paintings,
Woodpecker raddled and ravaged
By age that I chiefly admire.
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