The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread
Their greeness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again and we grow old? No, they die too,
their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every may.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

-Phillip Larkin