Listening to Trees
by Wilda Morris
                  Beginning with a line by Marie Howe

The oak tree seemed to be writing something with very few words
and the maples, too, the ones beneath which I walk.

They offer themselves to the breeze, whisper harmonies of the wind.

They give their branches to birds,
listen without judgment to each warble, each twitter.

This year again they sacrifice their leaves to the ground.

The leaves speak their own message under my feet.
Their incantation penetrates my bones.

I respond to their improvisation,

ready to receive the contentment of autumn
ready to give as the trees give.



 

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