Classic Poem

To draw sweet sustenance from the earth
Without devouring meat that's slain;
With casing bark to fit one's girth
And stand unhoused in wind, sun, rain —
To have waved leaves instead of hair
And a green colour for a face;
Never to move through life elsewhere
But root forever in one place:
O, what a strange soul there must be
In a broad, earth-rooted tree!
And yet, men say, when stricken sore,
Trees shiver a space just as they're felled;
A sentience sweeps their inmost core
That by their downward rush is quelled,
As if, from base to crown, they tried
To walk but once before they died!