Trees

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.

-Joyce Kilmer

Joyce Kilmer

What if your whole life and work were reduced to a single poem? So it is for Joyce Kilmer, whose best-known work is “Trees.” He lived a short life before being killed by a sniper in World War I at the age of 31.

He was a lover of nature and also a man of great faith. Before enlisting in the New York National Guard, he was widely considered to be the leading Roman Catholic poet of his generation.

Kilmer’s poems evoke the beauty of the natural world, and often mix these images with mystical or religious experiences. Kilmer’s vision of the world reminds me of Creation Spirituality, a feminist vision of religion put forth by Matthew Fox in which “spirit and matter form a ‘wonderful communion.'”

In this vision, “humility is to befriend one’s earthiness,” and “science, by teaching us about Nature, teaches us about the Creator.” I suspect these principles would ring true for Kilmer, had he lived to hear about them.

Kilmer’s language may be off-putting to those of my generation at first. We grew up without religion or rhyming poetry. But, I suspect his unabashed love of the natural world and his anti-patriarchal celebration of the divine feminine in nature will win others over as he as done for me.

“Trees” by Joyce Kilmer Analysis

Is this a mystical poem? I think so. And it is such an embodied, feminine version of mysticism for a Roman Catholic of the 19th century.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree. 

Who could possibly disagree? Especially a poet. A poet’s job is to reflect the beauty, truth, and heartbreak of the world. But the tree is the beauty, the truth, and the heartbreak, and everything else. Kilmer sees contact with reality itself as far more compelling than abstractions about reality.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; 

Kilmer sees the divine mother in the earth, and expresses it with such vivid imagery.

A tree that looks at God all day,

What does he mean that the tree looks at God all day? Perhaps he sees the leaves turned upwards, witnessing the long arc of the sun. Perhaps he sees something in the quality of consciousness the tree possesses: has she not forgotten, as we have, that she is one with everything?

A teacher once told me, “Nature is always in a state of grace. If you listen, you can hear every tree and plant chanting the name of God.” Perhaps Kilmer heard that music too.

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

The easy thing to do, of course, is to chalk Kilmer’s observations up to projection and rampant anthropomorphism. He sees himself in the tree and is projecting his own qualities onto this poor mass of bark and leaves.

But that is not how I see it. I see him staring at the tree, his mouth slightly agape in an awed smile. It is not a case of projecting his own thoughts onto reality, but rather a rare encounter with reality itself. He is having a mystical experience, seeing everything alive as an outflowing of praise to existence itself. Call it God, or The Universe, or whatever you like – the experience is beyond words.

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair; 

He gives the tree a pronoun. In doing so, he recognizes her as more than an object – she is also a subject, a conscious being in her own right.

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain. 

Can two lines be any more immersed in the Divine Feminine qualities of nature? Snow lying upon her bosom; living “intimately” with rain. This whole poem is rich with imagery that celebrates the Divine Feminine in the world.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

And so, in a fashion, he sees God, the transcendent, in the tree itself.

I am moved by the reverence he expresses in this last line. A tree is a thing of such beauty that “only God” could have made it.

How different is this vision from the patriarchal versions of religion which encourage dominion over nature, the exploitation of other peoples, and war. It strikes me as sad that Kilmer, such a sensitive and deeply feeling man, was killed in war.

If more people saw the world the way he did, I wonder how it might change.