The Trees Stand

Steeple of St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia
Photograph taken by Ben McCartney on December 5, 2002
POEM #20
a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known
autumn too long

(and what have you to say,
wind wind wind—did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
O crazy daddy
of death dance cruelly for us and start

the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air!) Let us as we have seen see
doom’s integration . . . . . . a wind has blown the rain

away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon’s face.

by American Poet, E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
(ellipses in original)