As we age, we feel less like leaves and more like trees. We have roots that ground us and sturdy trunks that may sway, but don't break, in the wind.

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees
and changing leaves.

Earth and water, soil and stone, oaks and elms and willows, they were here before us all and will still remain when we are gone.

ever you have happened on a grove set close with ancient trees grown beyond the common height, the pleaching of their branches one upon the other screening out sight of the sky, that loftiness of forest and solitude of place and sense of wonder at so dense and undisturbed a shade out in the open, will convince you of the presence of a god.

The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.

Trees quiver in the wind,
sailing on a sea of mist
out of earshot.

Resilient trees can weather a violent storm because their roots are deep and firm.

Our roots are in the depths of the woods-on the banks of streams and among the mosses.

When I enter a forest of tall fir trees, reaching toward the sky, I am surrounded, right and left, by their trunks, which seem to me like innumerable columns. Around me, one and the same vertical line is repeated endlessly. Th the extend that these tree trunk are clearly distinguished from a murky background, to the extent that they are well delineated from the blue sky, I am impressed with a feeling of unity, of parallelism.

Above ground,
in tropical flood, earth's greenery
stands with lifted arms, as if listening
to the beat of invisible pistons.

We and the trees and the way
Back from the fields of play
Lasted as long as we could No more walks in the wood

The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun.