Some Trees

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One of my favourite Ashbery poems. This is the moment, this here.

Some Trees

John Ashbery

These are amazing: each

Joining a neighbor, as though speech

Were a still performance.

Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning

From the world as agreeing

With it, you and I

Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:

That their merely being there

Means something; that soon

We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented

Such comeliness, we are surrounded:

A silence already filled with noises,

A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.

Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,

Our days put on such reticence

These accents seem their own defense.

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This poem appeared in The Mooring Of Starting Out by John Ashbery, published by Ecco Press, 1997. Shared here with profound gratitude.

Read more works by John Ashbery • Find books by this poet • Or view my library

Explore poems in pursuit of: nature • tenderness • living • Or browse the index

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