Leaf Out

A tall tree is a fountain of sweet water
Lifted out of the earth from the channels of lost rivers,
From the slow watercourses of the rain --
A fountain rising in sprays of green, falling in sprays of gold.
The trunk is a tower of water throbbing upward toward the sun.
The branches are streams of water that drip to the last bud on the limb.
The broad top casts a shower of leaves against the sky.

There is no river or brook that sings between its banks
As water sings in the trunk of a tree, mounting from branch to branch --
A river flowing up to the sky.

A Tall Tree, by Florida Watts Smyth