The Tree Whose Only Gift Is Shade
Nodding man whose patience is
The aching limb that bleeds
Severed from its tree
Find a light
Faint flickering
Then give that light to me
As when the Christ Child
Clapped frankincense in palms
And Mary donned
The red serene
Meager tree whose only gift
Is shade between
Fallen leaf and seed
With only fruit the shadow
Silhouette the lawn and soothe to sleep
The noontide rester
As when the Christ Child
Clapped frankincense in palms
And Mary donned
The red serene
And dust motes Carolingian
Bore the distant sun
And filigreed its beams
For the waker
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Written on 2014
Submitted by James_Kirkpatrick on December 13, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | xxa xxa BCDE xex xxx BCDE ffxa |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 568 |
Words | 118 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 4, 4 |
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"The Tree Whose Only Gift Is Shade" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/176106/the-tree-whose-only-gift-is-shade>.
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