Five pine trees held up on the nape of a broken hill Huddle and dream in a pattern of disarray. The first is twisted with thought; it is gnarled and still; It has nothing to throw to the winds that tore its branches away. The second is restless with youth. It answers the wind With laughter of leaves; it claps its green hands At every air stirring, no matter how fetid or thinned; It sings, with impatient abandon, of all that it scarce understands. The third is expansive, a generous mother of trees. All day it keeps crooning an old wives' patter of charms. And the cold moon is held, for a spell, on compassionate knees, And the wind is a child that it hushes to sleep in its arms. The fourth has a taunt for each breeze; it dares to be taken, Sure of its roots in the solid, respectable earth. The fifth is a dying trunk, too old to be shaken By winds that are less to it now that half-hearted whispers of birth. Five pine trees held up on the nape of a broken hill Huddle and dream in a pattern of disarray . . . And you pass among them. They touch you; you alter. Stand still! Which are you today? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOROTHY'S DOWER by PHOEBE CARY ON AN OLD MUFF by FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON THE RAGGEDY MAN by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY A HOUSE by JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE CYNTHIA ON HORSEBACK by PHILIP AYRES PORTRAIT IN THE HORIZONTAL by RUTH FITCH BARTLETT |