Twelve of us islanders, from four to my seventy-four, Come together to plant two hundred trees Of this late-winter Saturday afternoon. Nothing like a meitheal to remind us of The basics of This entity called earth. To plant a tree. To literally put down roots. To tramp around the moist base of a tiny sapling. Talk not important. But then, A good word is like a good tree whose top Is in the sky. Or so says the Koran. But we couldn’t talk much as we planted, Stomping on spades, swinging pickaxes, Prying up stubborn stones, figuring out where to start The next hole. Those alder and ash, the occasional oak, The birch, aspen, and elder. To spread out their roots, To rake in fresh soil with our fingers. We’re not planting trees for ourselves But for posterity, nothing selfish here. Well, except the pleasure of participating In literally down to earth work. Yeah, Joyce Kilmer had it right, “I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.” Even one without leaves yet. But then, John Ashberry takes another step: “You and I Are suddenly what the trees try To tell us we are: That their merely being there Means something….” And our being here means something too. Now to wash off the mud.