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Trees 
 by Joyce Kilmer

    I think that I shall never see  
   A poem lovely as a tree.
   A tree whose hungry mouth is prest                                                                                                                                                            
   Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
  A tree that looks at God all day,   
  And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
  A tree that may in Summer wear    
  A nest of robins in her hair;
  Upon whose bosom snow has lain;    
 Who intimately lives with rain.
 Poems are made by fools like me,    
 But only God can make a tree.

Poem for October
by Michael Chanteur

It’s always a bittersweet time,
the end of summer, the darkening of days,
harvest and plenty amidst decay.

We hate to see the death of leaves,
the over-ripened fruit still on the vine.
We shiver at the newly chilled air,
as day and night trade places.

It is a sad time, a paradoxical time,
with brilliant , firework colors being only
a swan song of another summer.

Hard to take, like any loss.
We know spring will come again,
As it always has, with new growth and new life.
But loss is never easy, never trivial.

The death is real-those leaves will never rise,
that summer never repeat itself the same way.
If only we could hold on, and not say goodbye.
Of course we can’t and shouldn’t even try

Lake Isle of Innisfree

by William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
 And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
 Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; 
 And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
 
 And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
 Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
 There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
 And evening full of the linnet's wings.
 
 I will arise and go now, for always night and day
 I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
 While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
 I hear it in the deep heart's core.
  

Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Introduction (first two stanzas)

Should you ask me, 
whence these stories? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
With the odors of the forest 
With the dew and damp of meadows, 
With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
With the rushing of great rivers, 
With their frequent repetitions, 
And their wild reverberations 
As of thunder in the mountains? 


 I should answer, I should tell you, 
"From the forests and the prairies, 
From the great lakes of the Northland, 
From the land of the Ojibways, 
From the land of the Dacotahs, 
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands 
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Feeds among the reeds and rushes. 
I repeat them as I heard them 
From the lips of Nawadaha, 
The musician, the sweet singer."

Paper Cups
by Michael Chanteur

I saw two paper cups in the woods
hanging on a branch by their paper handles,
side by side with their covers neatly on.

I don't care for litter in the woods,
but I wonder if  upon the forest litter
there once stood two lovers, side by side,
the users of those paper cups.

I wonder if they touched hand to hand,
lips to lips,breath to breath, and felt the flow of life.
And perhaps the spring sap flowing so fully in the trees,
flowed also with the blood of those two hearts.

Then as some mock reminder of their visit,
they placed their empty cups upon a branch,
so that they might recall in passing the beauty of that day.
I would like to think it happened that way.

An Autumn Evening 
by Lucy Maud Montgomery


Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below 
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow 
And wake among the harps of leafless trees 
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies. 

The chilly purple air is threaded through
With silver from the rising moon afar, 
And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue
In the southwest glimmers a great gold star 
Above the darkening druid glens of fir 
Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir. 

And so I wander through the shadows still,
And look and listen with a rapt delight, 
Pausing again and yet again at will
To drink the elusive beauty of the night, 
Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup, 
That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.