A Passion for Trees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem has not appeared on the blog since 2008 and has been  especially requested by ‘Jack and Louise’ for ‘[our] son Michael and his partner Jonathan.’

So the  poem talks of gay love…so what? Love is love is love just as a poem is a poem is a poem and - most importantly of all - a person is a person is a person. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

Oh, but the tales a tree can tell...if we but care to listen!

The famous opening lines of ‘Trees’ by American writer, Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) s may well spring to mind:

‘I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree...’

Photo: An ash tree.

A PASSION FOR TREES

There’s a tree in a field

that sings me a love song

every time I’m sitting

where it rises from the ground;

listen, and you’ll hear

the lyric of a love song hanging

on a dream lost and found

By a tree in a field

we wrote our first love song,

bodies entwining

as we lay there on the ground,

sharing with the birds

such joy, such passion, hanging

on a dream lost and found

There’s a tree in a field

that watched us kiss and part,

not daring to believe

as we lay there on the ground

how gay love might

survive a world left but hanging

on dreams lost and found

To a tree in a field

we returned to write a love song,

bodies entwining

as we lay there on the ground,

sharing with the birds

such joy, such passion, a waking

dream lost and found

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]