Entry tags:

poetry

William Meredith
The poet, William Meredith, died a couple of days ago in New London.

A Couple of Trees has always been one of my favorite poems.

The two oaks lean apart for light.
They aren't as strong as lone oaks
but in a wind they give each other lee.

Daily since I cleared them I can see
them, tempting to chain saw and ax-
two hard-woods, leaning like that for light.

A hurricane tore through the state one night,
picking up roof and hen-house, boat and dock.
Those two stood; leafless, twigless, giving lee.

Last summer ugly slugs unleafed the trees.
Environmental kids wrote Gypsy Moths Suck.
The V of naked oaks leaned to the light

for a few weeks, then put out slight
second leaves, scar-tissue pale as bracts,
bandaged comrades, lending each other lee.

How perilous in one another's V
our lives are, yoked in this yoke:
two men, leaning apart for light,
but in a wind who give each other lee.