Recollection of the Wood

Light at each point was beating then to flight,

The sapling bark flushed upward, and the welling

Tips of the wood touched, touched at the bound,

And boughs were slight and burdened beyond telling

Toward that caress of the boughs a summer’s night,

Illimitable in fragrance and in sound.

Here were the blue buds, earlier than hope,

Unnumbered, beneath the leaves, a breath apart,

Wakening in root-dusk. When the air went north,

Lifting the oakleaves from the northern slope,

Their infinite young tender eyes looked forth.

Here all that was, was frail to bear a heart.

Copyright Credit: Léonie Adams, “Recollection of the Wood” from Poems: A Selection (New York: The Noonday Press, 1959). Used by permission of Judith Farr, Literary Executrix of the Estate of Léonie Adams.

Source: Poems: A Selection (The Noonday Press, 1959)