WHY I HAVEN’T WRITTEN YOU MORE POETRY, CONSIDERING THE EASE WITH WHICH I’VE WRITTEN IT FOR OTHERS

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A green tree by a distant mountain lake,

By some far-gazing painter faintly seen,

Will, when it’s placed upon his canvas, take

Only the merest speck or two of green.

 

Or, when the self-same tree, much closer now,

Fills up a frame with all its subtle soul,

Some master still might paint its every bough

To let each passing viewer see it whole.

 

But if you sit within the tree’s great heart

And try to plot each leafy, branching way,

You’ll lose yourself in every complex part

And never find the soul you would portray.

 

And so, despite what you and I can claim,

I do not have the words to speak its name.