I lay my head beside the willow tree

Common of a sunny day

Me reclining in the light-gilt

living room saw my Mother

approach and say,

"See this peach."

(holding it out for me)

"It's fuzzy and sweet,

but inside it sleeps a bitter seed,

a stone to make a tree.

Think," she said to me,

"Of the wonder of a tree,

that from wood and leaves

a peach should be!"

She shuffled away, and I sat

stricken and reeling on the couch.

For the sun in my eye,

I could not see, and thus

was left to my own device.

What a marvel was a tree,

said she,

and I tended to agree.

Thinking further, I came to see

how we all did come from trees.

How from that tree plucked us

our general progenitors,

with choosy hands,

passing down that bitter seed,

and for a while to me it seemed,

hardly could a soul from trees be gleaned;

but in all the hewn wood,

life,

threshing words,

spilling sap, tremulous

and overgrown,

house to ivy, ringlets and ladder,

moss graves, finches, sparrows,

bright bulbs, berries, snow-fallen,

morning's anchor and worms' parasol,

bench on which the fawn would lay,

dancing through the dappled day;

Through that I see a tree,

and in it,

I see we.