You will find something more
in woods than in books.
Trees and stones will teach you
that which you can never
learn from masters.
~ Saint Bernard
METAMORPHOSIS
Always it happens when we are not there--
The tree leaps up alive into the air,
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.
Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!
— May Sarton
from Collected Poems 1930-1993, W.W. Norton and Co.
Poetry Garden
