A Choice Poem by Richard Blanch

Ash is a quiet tree, light and leafy
It soothes and mildly shades, easing
With a grace, with a favour quickly won,
Tasting of clouds and a milky sun.
The day is blond with its cheer
All that is tranquil and fun gathers near
Under its ringlets, free-flowing, fair.

Under its scattered coins
Without fuss, without noise
Tight knots and screws may be undone
Racks loosened, heat plunged in
Wetness. Time sweetly, gently runs.

But there are darker woods, with foliage
That surges sable like night over day
And stirs with its eloquence, with a
Mane of menace and fluency
All that is deep at the core
Of things, all that is beyond.
All that is not rest, all that reaches for more.
Those shadowy tresses catch and curl in their waves,
A riot of tenderness, rapt in a phrase
That has nothing to do with desire-
A thousand tales, a world where everything
And nothing is sure.


When you are called from the forest,
To go where no trees throng the earth-
Now tell true: which of these would you choose
To sing its song in your tired mind? In that
Inescapable dearth, which tree
Of memory would best tell again
Of the worth of what had been?
Which of the two, judge by the pain
(Welcome the rawness,
Nurture the bruise)
Would have been hardest to lose?