Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks to God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer died under German gunfire in 1918, in the second Battle of the Marne. France awarded him a posthumous Croix de Guerre. His best remember poem, “Trees” was first published in a poetry magazine in 1913.