The Graft
from a tree without fruit
the one that is about to be an uproot
God did graft
a twig with three green leaves
glossy on the bark
and so
fully alive,
this is what had been prayed
and this is what has been granted.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Leaves Compared with Flowers
A tree's leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bar, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.
But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.
Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.
I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.
Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.
poem by Robert Frost
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Arbor Amoris
I have a tree, a graft of Love,
That in my heart has taken root;
Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
So greatly hath its shadow spread,
That underneath all joy is dead,
And all my pleasant days are flown,
Nor can I slay it, nor instead
Plant any tree, save this alone.
Ah, yet, for long and long enough
My tears were rain about its root,
And though the fruit be harsh thereof,
I scarcely looked for better fruit
Than this, that carefully I put
In garner, for the bitter bread
Whereon my weary life is fed:
Ah, better were the soil unsown
That bears such growths; but Love instead
Will plant no tree, but this alone.
Ah, would that this new spring, whereof
The leaves and flowers flush into shoot,
I might have succour and aid of Love,
To prune these branches at the root,
That long have borne such bitter fruit,
And graft a new bough, comforted
With happy blossoms white and red;
So pleasure should for pain atone,
Nor Love slay this tree, nor instead
Plant any tree, but this alone.
L'ENVOY.
Princess, by whom my hope is fed,
My heart thee prays in lowlihead
To prune the ill boughs overgrown,
Nor slay Love's tree, nor plant instead
Another tree, save this alone.
poem by François Villon
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Preparatory Meditations - First Series: 29
(John. 20:17. My Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God)
My shattered fancy stole away from me
(Wits run a-wooling over Eden's park)
And in God's garden saw a golden tree,
Whose heart was all divine, and gold its bark.
Whose glorious limbs and fruitful branches strong
With saints and angels bright are richly hung.
Thou! Thou! my dear dear Lord, art this rich tree,
The tree of life within God's Paradise.
I am a withered twig, dried fit to be
A chat cast in Thy fire, writh off by vice.
Yet if Thy milk-white gracious hand will take me
And graft me in this golden stock, Thou'lt make me.
Thou'lt make me then its fruit, and branch to spring,
And though a nipping east wind blow, and all
Hell's nymphs with spite their dog's sticks therat ding
To dash the graft off, and its fruits to fall,
Yet I shall stand Thy graft, and fruits that are
Fruits of the tree of life Thy graft shall bear.
I being graft in Thee, there up do stand
In us relations all that mutual are.
I am Thy patient, pupil, servant, and
Thy sister, mother, dove, spouse, son, and heir.
Thou art my priest, physician, prophet, king,
Lord, brother, bridegroom, father, everything.
I being graft in Thee I am grafted here
Into Thy family, and kindred claim
To all in heaven, God, saints, and angels there.
I Thy relations my relations name.
Thy father's mine, Thy God my God, and I
With saints and angels draw affinity.
My Lord, what is it that Thou dost bestow?
The praise on this account fills up, and throngs
Eternity brimful, doth overflow
The heavens vast with rich angelic songs.
How should I blush? How tremble at this thing,
Not having yet my gam-ut learned to sing.
But, Lord, as burnished sunbeams forth out fly,
Let angel-shine forth in my life outflame,
That I may grace Thy graceful family
And not to Thy relations be a shame.
Make me Thy graft, be Thou my golden stock.
Thy glory then I'll make my fruits and crop.
poem by Edward Taylor
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For Those Who Grieve
no one
no one can really stop you
from eating the bark of the tree
the thick skin of the
fruit
no one can tell you what should have
been proper
or better
you like the skin and you throw away
the fruit that could have
satisfied your
thirst and hunger
the bark has poisoned you
the moon has warned you too well
the worm is wriggling
its frail and elongated
body
you have no ears
your sense of smell so badly damaged
and now you
are dying
no one tells you that life is as sweet
as the ripe fruit of the tree
that luscious flesh that flowing
juice
your gaze is sharp as a knife
stabbing even the
sun
and you are always right
what you have been searching
that can satisfy your hunger and thirst
is not found on the fruit
not even in the tree
it is in the poisonous bark
that useless skin
that silly coat
definitely it is not even here
where we are all grieving
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Counting-Out Rhyme
Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.
Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Colour seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.
Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.
Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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A Seed
See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs' expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
"Are the ills of one's life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?"
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?
poem by William Allingham
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When love is dead
You cut a twig
The leaves wilt
And then you say
Love is dead
I plant the twig
And bury the leaves
I dream of flowers
I wait for days
A bud springs
Then love is alive
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Baobab Tree
under whose branches lions lie down
dreaming in the sun,
where baboons sometimes play,
where elephants rip off some bark
and when you walk around it,
its branches look like rows of spears,
and birds do fly up, and bees buzz around it,
and when you come in its shade, smell its fruit,
its leaves and bark does not look similar
to any other tree.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Taken For Granted
No!
I am not berries to pick,
On your visits to the forest.
Nor am I a twig to pluck.
To deleaf and strip of bark.
What I am is flesh.
Deep with emotions.
I've learned I must protect.
Especially when my feelings
Are taken for granted.
And the more I give...
The less respect I get!
No!
I am not berries to pick,
On your visits to the forest.
Nor am I a twig to pluck.
To deleaf and strip of bark.
And this is what you do.
Like many who are clueless.
About that which has life.
Or about those feelings others have too!
'Why are you so sensitive?
Oooow!
Why did you pinch me? '
Isn't that strange?
I didn't feel a thing!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Shake The Sugar Tree
(chapin hartford)
(track 5 - time 3:08)
Love, youre getting lazy
Youre forgettin to give me
Sweet sugar words that I wanna hear
Youve been neglectin me
You know jealously, it is a bitter as a green spring berry
And just like fruit from a fickle vine
You turn sweet in the nick of time
Love you only come alive when youre losin me
And its a childish game
Ive got to shake you up just to wake you up
To make you love me
Ill shake the sugar tree
Til I feel your love fallin all around me
Youve got to tend to what you planted
And if you take my love for granted baby
Ill shake the sugar tree
Another night and youre sleepin
Im awake and Im dreamin
Oh honey bout the way that it used to be
And little times gone by
Do you think that Im content
With the cookin and the payin of rent
No I wanna know if your loves all spent
Ill shake the sugar tree
Til I feel your love fallin all around me
Youve got to tend to what you planted
And if you take my love for granted baby
Ill shake the sugar tree
Ive got to raise some commotion
Before you show me some real emotion
Ill shake the sugar tree
Til I feel your love fallin all around me
Youve got to tend to what you planted
And if you take my love for granted baby
Ill shake the sugar tree
You know Im gonna shake the sugar tree
Til I feel your love fallin all around me
Youve got to tend to what you planted
And if you take my love for granted baby
Ill shake the sugar tree
song performed by by Pam Tillis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Love...
there is no empty plate
nothing is stained
there is no empty chair
everyone sits
there is no tree without
leaves
no twig without a fruit
there is no paper without
words of praise
there is no labyrinth without
a trace
there is no chaos
understanding always reigns
there is no attempt to change
what cannot be.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Holly-Tree
O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme, -
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear
Harsh and austere;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth - as youth is apt, I know, -
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? -
So, serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.
poem by Robert Southey
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Autumn leaves
The old are the autumn leaves
Shed of the time tree
And lie yellow to be laughed at
By the leaves full of green.
Unlike the leaves, the old are alive
To experience the neglects.
16.12.2005
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Burdened, when unloaded
When a bird shoots through leaves
And a fruit falls from the twig
A tree might feel relieved.
When a friend of yours turns off
And a child of yours drifts away
You might feel burdened.
A thing worth more than its weight
Gives you burden when unloaded.
08.07.2003
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Bobbing
when the crow
lands on the twig
the weight
pushes the twig
down almost
reaching the ground
the bobbing
somewhat intrigues
the senses of the
caterpillar on the leaf
the tree frowns
upon a black alien
some leaves fall
and the grass as usual
keeps its silence
as the air passes by
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Strip My Leaves
Cut my branches, strip my leaves - The last in your world, i want to bark like the tree - Destruction is the meaning, the extinction to all species - Then we have gained eternal rest, we are green, we did our best, to kill - That is the will, i am to green to vomit - I have no excuse, i am not ill, i know what i have done -
I will bleed for death, i want her - Ass she seeks my breath
poem by Unic Cjonr
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Around the Acacia Tree
Vertical and pinnate, green leaves
And small flowers of yellow grow
Around the Acacia Tree.
Sun light drapes and the ground receives
The curtain's folding golden glow
Around the Acacia Tree.
The incense scent in the air weaves
The knitted root tangles below
Around the Acacia Tree.
Yet, now, from the bark, cloudy smoke
Lifts like a slumbering ghost awoke
Around the Acacia Tree.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Diversity Of This Strength
The tree.
Grown up from a bush.
The branch with twigs.
The leaves.
The bark,
Protecting.
The trunk...
And roots!
Supportive...
And there.
Doing all that it is to get done.
And not a hint,
Of pretentiousness is shown!
Cohesive with a purpose.
Unknown.
And taken for granted,
Is the diversity of this strength.
A collective oneness...
With such a quiet power.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Stringy-Bark Tree
There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar,
Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are;
There is many another, but dearest to me,
And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree.
Then of stringy-bark slabs were the walls of the hut,
And from stringy-bark saplings the rafters were cut;
And the roof that long sheltered my brothers and me
Was of broad sheets of bark from the stringy-bark tree.
And when sawn-timber homes were built out in the West,
Then for walls and for ceilings its wood was the best;
And for shingles and palings to last while men be,
There was nothing on earth like the stringy-bark tree.
Far up the long gullies the timber-trucks went,
Over tracks that seemed hopeless, by bark hut and tent;
And the gaunt timber-finder, who rode at his ease,
Led them on to a gully of stringy-bark trees.
Now still from the ridges, by ways that are dark,
Come the shingles and palings they call stringy-bark;
Though you ride through long gullies a twelve months you’ll see
But the old whitened stumps of the stringy-bark tree.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Sonnet: Nature Heals Itself
Just when I thought the tree was surely dead,
New leaves began to sprout up once again;
And soon, it wore a green crown on its head;
It had been resurrected by the rain!
Dumb-founded, astonished, perplexed I stood!
The tree that was deemed dead now was alive;
A canopy of green covered the wood,
And made me happy for the tree was live!
What a remarkable feat of Nature!
Impossible a task, it had performed;
Never underestimate her stature;
If left to man, the tree would have been harmed.
Thou art thine own healer, Nature Mother!
Can a human do than thee much better?
poem by John Celes
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