O wise and patient apple tree
Stirred by the wind from across the sea
Your branches shake unceasingly.
On sunny days your shining leaves
Give welcome shade and sanctuary
To cheerful sparrows, starlings, wrens,
Bright-eyed blackbirds, collared doves;
To all you are a place of rest
And peace, but seasons pass, leaves fall,
Then come the snows of winter when
Bare-boughed you slumber until spring
And every heart uplifts to see
Such beauty in a living tree.
In autumn when your apples thud
Upon the ground, we share them equally
With blackbird, thrush and butterfly
For you are generous in your gifts.
Like us one day you’ll surely die
Yet unlike us you do not fret
About tomorrow, you take each day
Just as it comes and simply be.
So teach us wisdom apple tree
Whose branches shake unceasingly
Stirred by the wind from across the sea.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Peter, I love the conversation you have with this apple tree...but the meter is consistent save for two lines in stanza three. This bothered me in the reading, for you had a consistent iambic tetrameter going and the longer-metered lines through off the poem. Your last three lines were really lovely. Raynette