TALKING IN THEIR SLEEP
by Edith M. Thomas
“You think I am dead,”
The apple tree said,
“Because I have never a leaf to show –
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
“But I’m still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away –
But I pity the withered grass at my root.”
“You think I am dead,”
The quick grass said,
“Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.
“I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here –
But I pity the flower without branch or root.”
“You think I am dead,”
A soft voice said,
“Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.
“Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again –
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.
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