Advice: A Book of Poems

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">ADVICE TO A FOREST</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">O trees, to whom the darkness is a child</div> <div class="verse">Scampering in and out of your long, green beards;</div> <div class="verse">O trees, to whom sunlight is a tattered pilgrim</div> <div class="verse">Counting his dreams within your hermitage</div> <div class="verse">And slipping down the road, in twilight robes;</div> <div class="verse">O trees, whose leaves make an incense of sound</div> <div class="verse">Reeling with the beat of your caught feet,</div> <div class="verse">Do not mingle your tips in startled hatred,</div> <div class="verse">When little men come to fell you.</div> <div class="verse">These men will saw you into strips</div> <div class="verse">Of pointed brooding, blind with paint,</div> <div class="verse">But underneath you men will chase</div> <div class="verse">The grey staccato of their lives</div> <div class="verse">Down a glaring maze of walls</div> <div class="verse">Much harder than your own.</div> <div class="verse">And when, at last, the deep brown gaze</div> <div class="verse">Of stolidly amorous time steals over you,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">The little men who bit into your hearts</div> <div class="verse">Will stray off in a patter of rabbits&#8217; feet.</div> <div class="verse">Look down upon these children then</div> <div class="verse">With the aloof and weary tolerance</div> <div class="verse">That all still things possess,</div> <div class="verse">O trees, to whom the darkness was a child</div> <div class="verse">Scampering in and out of your long, green beards.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />