For some reason, while on a recent trip northern Maine, the first few words of a poem came to me, but I couldn’t recollect the rest of the lines or who had written it. I tiny bit of research on the internet revealed the entire poem and the author’s name, Joyce Kilmer, a soldier who died in World War 1 at the age of 31. The name of his poem is simply “Trees” and for anyone who has never heard it, here it is:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

The author of Tree Talk is a licensed arborist. He can be reached at [email protected] or 207-693-3831.

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