December Poem Prompt 3 and ...

...enjoy the holidays and the end of 2007 with good food, good wine, good company. There's still time (until midnight on 31st December) to add a poem in response to this or any of the postings below.

I've had lots of Christmas cards with trees on them this year so my final prompt for December 2007 is to write a poem about a tree, or trees. Here's one of my favourite tree poems... and I'll be back on 1st January to read all the responses and choose December's 'prize' poem.

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches


W. S. Merwin
from The Compass Flower
Macmillan Publishing Company