Learning the Trees

Before you can learn the trees, you have to

The language of the trees.

That's done indoors,

Out of a book, which now you think of

Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,

You might be in a foreign land of

Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,

Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves –Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform –And their venation – palmate and parallel –And tips – acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may

Go forth to the forests and the shady

To see how the chaos of

Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly.

The leaves of a single

May differ among themselves more than they

From other species, so you have to find,

All blandly says the book, "an average leaf."Example, the catalpa in the

Sprays out its leaves in whorls of

Around the stem; the one in front of

But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it's not catalpa?

Dreadful doubt.

It may be weeks before you see an

Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,

A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtim as Lucretious says,

Little by little, you do start to learn;

And learn as well, maybe, what language

And how it does it, cutting across the

Not always at the joints, competing

Experience while cooperating

Experience, and keeping an

Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret

Pretending obedience to Nature,

Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,

Dividing up the world to conquer it.

And think also how funny knowledge is:

You may succeed in learning many

And calling off their names as you go by,

But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York.

He died of cancer at his home in University City,

Missouri on July 5th 1991.