Trees

Trees were our primal home.
Our cradle and trapeze
Our stage and auditorium
Fortress and refuge
Parasol, umbrella
And universal store.

Stout friends from earliest days,
They have breathed — in the poison
We exhale, and breathed — out Life.
Their claws grapple with shifting earth.
Meekly they give their bodies to the axe,
And yield their sap for syrup,
Their bark for cork or medicine
Or tannin for our hides.

The beech with greyhound skin
The brawny oak, the crabbed hawthorn
Cypress's dark plume
London plane,
All have their excellencies.
All, without fail
Are messy with their leaves.