William Carlos Williams

Winter Trees
By WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.


I can look outside my window and see the skeletons of the trees as we all can who live in the Northern Hemisphere of Earth today. I live in Northern California where there are plenty of trees and where there were plenty of them where the poet lived and practiced medicine going on house calls in his large car. He would have seen them as he drove past and the people as himself attired for the cold wintry days. Those who were going to stay inside were inside and those who were going to do something outside had completed the preparations and there is an exclamation at the end of that line. I have known people who never went outside for an assortment of reasons such as the aged and the sick and those afraid of the cold and the reality of the seasons.

Williams' imagery is clear and simple as it describes a moon behind the bare branches of the trees as we have all seen the moon glide gently in the sky but only when it is behind the branches can we gauge the movement. When I lived in Southern California, I never saw bare branches and it was when I lived in Kansas that I first saw this and felt astonishment. I could actually see the moon move.

I was at the Whiskeytown Lake Park yesterday and noticed that there were small buds on the branches of the bare trees in the park where the leaves will be peeping out in a month or two. Leaves and buds don't come out at the same time everywhere in the world. I thought they did until I traveled around the world a bit.

The trees do seem to be sleeping waiting for the warmth of spring and the joys of summer. We, as humans, enjoy autumn because of the colors but it must be a sad time for the trees or maybe they are looking forward to the winter. They, unlike us, always wake up. When we go to sleep under them in the deep earth, we don't wake, not in this life.

I suppose if I have a favorite poet, it would have to be William Carlos Williams who as a doctor saw birth and death. Sometimes, he could help slow down the rate of death, but no one can stop it completely. He would have to know that. He would see life beginning and life ending and he saw the beauty of life everywhere. He would see tears and laughter. I love his poetry because it is full of layers of meaning. I don't know if he knew about zen, but his poetry has it.