Loveliest Tree Poem by gershon hepner

Loveliest tree, the cherry will,
its blossoms under snow,
tell aging poets there is still––
before the blossoms go
and snow melts and the ground is covered
no more by blossom petals––
time left to think of their beloved
whose memory unsettles
the equanimity of rhyme,
because the past is chill:
while cherries ripen, loving time
for these men never will.
And yet, although the snows will melt
and blossoms will be shed,
they don’t forget how once they felt,
when warmed within in their bed.



A. E. Housman wrote “Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now” on his seventieth birthday.



3/27/98