I first discovered this poem freshman year of college in a Comparative Studies class that sometimes met outside (it was spring quarter). I loved that we would go outside, and that otherwise we would all sit around a huge table instead of at desks, but the class itself was only so-so. Still, thank you to the professor whose name I don’t remember for introducing me to Rita Dove. This poem is from Dove’s collection Grace Notes. And it definitely makes me yearn for tree-climbing days of yore.
Everybody who’s anybody longs to be a tree—
or ride one, hair blown to froth.
That’s why horses were invented, and saddles
tooled with singular stars.
This is why we braid their harsh manes
as if they were children, why children
might fear a carousel at first for the way
it insists that life is round. No,
we reply, there is music and then it stops;
the beautiful is always rising and falling.
We call and the children sing back one more time.
In the tree the luminous sap ascends.
PS — today in excellent-prose recommendations, Garrison Keillor’s thoughts on oil & other things. From June 2, but if you like me missed it til now… BP and Bach
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