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The EVERGREEN’S LESSON

Each fall when the tall and slender evergreen

leans forward over the stream to speak,

the members of the choir listen from the other side.

Every year it is the same speech,

and while wishing it might be different

like children they are prepared to go to bed.

The Evergreen says,

“You have been a sparkling choir since spring.

Your singing has lifted the ponderous pine

and loosened the spruce.

(They laugh.)

The forest thanks you.

No one has complained.

And the stream too,

always the same and never the same

continues on its way

and makes no complaints.

We know that in all its babbling

there is some thanks as well.

I  said as much last year

and many years before

but now I must say it once more.

Keep from your bed throughout

the coming suspended season

any dreams of envy

toward the evergreens

for staying awake while you sleep.

It cannot be helped.

We are each made our own way.

I remind you once more, imagine

what you would sound like

with needles restraining your leaves.

You will be bare for a while –

bare but not ruined.

When you wake again

sprouting new instruments

and soon singing

it will be with a range and rustle

the equal and more

of what you had this past season.

Go to bed now and rest well.

We who are awake will miss you,

watching and waiting in the snow

for another season of your lovely singing.”