The Trees by Philip Larkin (Bri Carter)

     Philip Larkin who is usually known for his grumpiness and vulgarity in poetry, writes a poem about the coming of spring. I come back to this poem every spring season because of the calming reflective nature of the verses. 


The Trees (1974)


The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.


Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.


Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.


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