The Saturday Poem: Elegy for a Walnut Tree

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/24/saturday-poem-elergy-for-a-walnut-tree-ws-merwin

Version 0 of 1.

Old friend now there is no one alivewho remembers when you were youngit was high summer when I first saw youin the blaze of day most of my life agowith the dry grass whispering in your shadeand already you had lived through warsand echoes of wars around your silence through days of parting and seasons of absencewith the house emptying as the years went their wayuntil it was home to bats and swallowsand still when spring climbed toward summeryou opened once more the curled sleeping fingersof newborn leaves as though nothing had happenedyou and the seasons spoke the same language and all these years I have looked through your limbs to the river below and the roofs and the nightand you were the way I saw the world

• From The Moon Before Morning (Bloodaxe, £12). To order a copy for £9.60 with free UK p&p go to guardianbookshop.co.uk or call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846.