NOVEMBER  TREES

Poem for Tuesday November 4th, 2014

NOVEMBER THROUGH 

A GIANT COPPER BEECH

This almost bare tree is racing,

taut in the wind, leaves flaring,

jet fire fed by a hurrying

keen whistling bird, against

hundred-limbed elephant branches

steadied in wrinkled gray molten

antediluvian skin

wrapped tight to stay where it is.

Think of sheer endlessness, beauty

patient in form, forever

uncrumbled between time's nickering

teeth—oh brutal necessity!

Think of the still and the flowing­ -

Heraclitus's everything passes,

the one-eyed conviction against

the rockbeaded everything dozes.

On this bleary white afternoon,

are there fires lit up in heaven

against such faking of quickness

and light, such windy discoursing?

While November numbly collapses,

this beech tree, heavy as death

on the lawn, braces for throat-

cutting ice, bandaging snow.

© Edwin Honig,

Page 495 in

The New Yorker

Book of Poems 1974

Tree on top: Copper
Beech Tree, University
of Connecticut