1. The Bare Tree

The bare cherry tree
higher than the roof
last year produced
abundant fruit. But how
speak of fruit confronted
by that skeleton?
Though live it may be
there is no fruit on it.
Therefore chop it down
and use the wood
against this biting cold.
[The Wedge 1944]

4. Wild Orchard

It is a broken country,
the rugged land is
green from end to end;
the autumn has not come.

Embanked above the orchard
the hillside is a wall
of motionless green trees,
the grass is green and red.

Five days the bare sky
has stood there day and night.
No bird, no sound.
Between the trees

stillness
and the early morning light.
The apple trees
are laden down with fruit.

Among blue leaves
the apples green and red
upon one tree stand out
most enshrined.

Still, ripe, heavy,
spherical and close,
they mark the hillside.
It is a formal grandeur,

a stateliness,
a signal of finality
and perfect ease.
Among the savage

aristocracy of rocks
one, risen as a tree,
has turned
from his repose.
[Poems 1922]

2. The Orchard

This is the time
for which we have been
waiting 

cherry blossom time
when lilacs are in bloom
we propose 

to ourselves
im wunderschoensten Monat Mai
before

it is too late
the celebrated Revolution
is accomplished

but back of that
there is a memory of a
much loved 

Cherry Orchard.
Lightheartedly enjoy the fruit
as you

may at the
time not forgetting to
spit out

the pit.

[Poems 1962]

5. Perfection

           O lovely apple!
beautifully and completely
            rotten,
hardly a contour marred —

           perhaps a little
shriveled at the top but that
          aside perfect
in every detail! O lovely

           apple! what a
deep and suffusing brown
            mantles that
unspoiled surface! No one

           has moved you
since I placed you on the porch
          rail a month ago
to ripen.

            No one. No one!
[The Wedge 1944]

3. This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
[Poems 1934]