Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WITH THE TREES: A PROSE POEM, by MARGUERITE WILKINSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WITH THE TREES: A PROSE POEM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The liveoaks are my soldiery
Last Line: Such is my desire while I am with the trees.
Subject(s): Trees


THE liveoaks are my soldiery, gnarled and resistant, bearded with grey-
green, drooping mosses. They stand about my dwelling staunch, tireless,
unflinching, the brave masters of today and to-morrow.
The sweet pepper trees are my fellows and companions, full of sympathy,
gay, friendly, delicate, and tactful, demanding neither too much nor too little
of me, waving long plumes in the breeze, flashing bright berries in the sun.
When I go out I seek them, and when I come in I bring them with me.
The eucalyptus trees are my poets and idealists, stripping off ruthlessly
the binding withered bark of today, ready to stand nude under the sun in the
truth of to-morrow, with high borne heads, acquiescent in the beauty of life and
death.
The sycamores are my choice and careful advisers, remote and infrequently
sought, demonstrating clearly that one way is not so good as another, profiting
by the tears shed in springtime, taking the way of their nature, following the
course of the hill streams, discriminating between this and that.
The olive trees are my ghosts, my memories of all that has been, lingering
in silver-grey presence near the life that now is, turning my thoughts back and
inward upon grey days of pain and sadness, or silver days of joy, that I may
remember and be wise.
Below me and about me are also the fair fruit trees that live but for the
hope of fragrant blossoms, that are to me as souls that strongly love.
At night, slowly and serenely, rises the mist from the ocean until it
encloses my hillside dwelling, wrapping me close in tremulous silence with the
trees. And in the morning, comes the sun, the revealer, to give us over to each
other anew.
Make me to understand you aright, I beseech you, my soldiers, my friends,
my poets, my prophets, my ghosts, my radiant lovers, my trees fair-favored and
at peace!
Make me hardy and determined as yourselves, O liveoaks near my dwelling!
Grant me somewhat of your strange, silent sympathy, sweet pepper trees!
Inspire me to the quest of beauty and truth, beloved eucalyptus!
Counsel out of many sorrows grant me, O distant and sagacious sycamores!
Yield me prescience and wisdom, O ghostly olives!
Make my love to be fragrant and mighty as yours, dear trees of blossom and
fruit burden!
Give me abundantly, all of you, of your manifold gifts, for all I am and
for all that I give forth!
Such is my desire while I am with the trees.





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