John Ashbery



 "Some Trees"

These are amazing: each 
Joining a neighbor, as though speech 
Were a still performance. 
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning 
From the world as agreeing 
With it, you and I 
Are suddenly what the trees try

To 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 emerges

A 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.

D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...