So you'd really like to know:
how could those illustrious trees—
so splendidly tall,
who pose
with touched hands
above the middle
of your street—
seem both
so old and wise, and yet
never born at all?
Is it because
there's simply no other way,
if you hope to hold
and keep safe
and remember every detail,
than to move
as slow and privately
as physics will abide—
or better yet,
when the rest of the world
looks on at you eagerly,
and expects you to grow
(as it will without fail),
to maybe just sway
in the noncommittal
breeze a little,
but otherwise
keep perfectly, troublingly
still?
