Trees Never Ravished Him Except in Autumn

“The green trees, when I saw them first through one of the gates,

transported and ravished me . . .” ~ Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditation

 

“Love refuses nothing.” ~ Cosimo in The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino

The trees New England gave to him the sight

Of holiness in degradation’s fire,

A transmigration of his soul, a flight

Like Christ’s Transfiguration, like desire

Of monks and nuns to levitate in pain

Of Jesus’ piercing, Emerson pierced through

By Waldo’s death, transcendence lacking stain,

Vermont — its trees of gorgeousness fierced, true.

  This poet knew a man who lived with trees,

“Weeping Cherry” by Charles Randall Stanfield, acrylic on heartwood

Who painted them, who captured limbs’ decrees.

©  Phillip Whidden