On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree what for not the fruit the tree that bears the fruit is not the one that was planted I want the tree that stands in the earth for the first time with the sun already going down and the water touching its roots in the earth full of the dead and the clouds passing one by one over its leaves –W. S. Merwin, from his book, The Rain in the Trees.
I am looking at trees they may be one of the things I will miss most from the earth though many of the ones I have seen already I cannot remember and though I seldom embrace the ones I see and have never been able to speak with one I listen to them tenderly their names have never touched them they have stood round my sleep and when it was forbidden to climb them they have carried me in their branches
Early morning in cloud light to the sound of the last of the rain at daybreak dripping from the tips of the fronds into the summer day I watch palm flowers open pink coral in midair among pleated cloud-green fans as I sit for a while after breakfast reading a few pages with a shadowing sense that I am stealing the moment from something else that I ought to be doing so the pleasure of stealing is part of it
