"Talking in Their Sleep" (winter poem)

"Talking in Their Sleep"




"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.



by Edith M. Thomas