{O the Wild Trees of my Home}.... a month of poetry...

O the wild trees of my home,
forests of blue dividing the pink moon,
the iron blue of those ancient branches
with their berries of vermillion stars.

In that place of steep meadows
the stacked sheaves are roasting,
and the sun-torn tulips
are tinders of scented ashes.

But here I have lost
the dialect of your hills,
my tongue has gone blind
far from their limestone roots.

Through trunks of black elder
runs a fox like a lantern,
and the hot grasses sing
with the slumber of larks

But here there are thickets

of many different gestures

torn branches of brick and steel frozen against the sky

O the wild trees of home
with their sounding dresses,
locks powdered with butterflies
and cheeks of blue moss.
I want to see you rise
from my brain’s dry river,
I want your lips of wet roses
laid over my eyes.

O fountains of earth and rock,
gardens perfumed with cucumber,
home of the secret valleys
where the wild trees grow.
let me return at last
to your fertile wilderness,
to sleep with the coiled fern leaves
in your heart’s live stone.

— Laurie Lee, The Wild Trees