some trees

in the still of winter,

trees stand tall and silent.

you can sense the life in them

but it's contained and carefully protected.

nurtured

like a small fire.

they stand still,

scratched against the thin blue winter sky

that fills with cloud,

empties

and fills again.

weak branches break off.

ice coats every twig.

frost cracks the trunk.

and still they stand.

still.

some trees

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.

john ashbery