Some Trees by John Ashbery
Some Trees
John AshberyThese are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chanceTo meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees tryTo 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 emergesA 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.
MARGINALIA
One of my favourite Ashbery poems. This is the moment, this here.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Mooring Of Starting Out by John Ashbery, published by Ecco, 1997. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
ABOUT JOHN ASHBERY
John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, on July 28, 1927. Ashbery was the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Breezeway (Ecco, 2015); Quick Question (Ecco, 2012); Planisphere (HarperCollins, 2009); A Worldly Country (Ecco, 2007); Where Shall I Wander (HarperCollins, 2005); Chinese Whispers (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002); Your Name Here (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000); Girls on the Run: A Poem (Farrar, Straus and Giroux,… (more)
Read more poems by John Ashbery • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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