Life of Trees
Trees
They are harder
Taller
Content with less
Live longer
And in them, after death
More warmth
They are, in a word
The new generation
The large willow dropped beneath itself
Leaves: one hundred thousand and eleven
To be exact
The earth munches them
Revealing the leaves'
Thin blades slender veins
Faces become, without smiles
Naked like trees
The roundness of willows disappears
Wounded, one of those
Falls down onto the canvas
A dragonfly's wing
At evening with the larches
A startling coloration
Frost surprised them in the middle of
Light and water's photosynthesis
Now their needles
Like copper oxidation
Glow with a strange hue
Extinguished sun
You have much to do in autumn
But the wind has more:
To adjust the colors
To take comforting thoughts
Into its chilly womb
To drop the leaves lightly
Lightly
As if no force
Were for or against
Soon you are the wind and hear
The distant snowfall's rustle
And you have your hands full
Keeping your bare hands
Where they are
Empty in the grayness
Your twigs hang, old birch
Although they still reach for the sky
Your unyielding branches
At this time of winter
No one yet sees
That greenness to you
Will not come
Not from dust, not from thirst
But from the pain of your growth rings
Your eyes are dry
A moment flew by the flower withered
An hour rolled past light diminished
A day fled color faded
A season changed the surface shriveled
A year closed the skin became worn
Days rushed by the flesh hardened
Evenings wore on shadows stretched
Night crawled darkness thickened
Time! sank its teeth and cried out
The leaves fell we were reduced
Me a hunchbacked aspen
A lumpy old crooked tree
And you a weeping birch
Shoulders slumped arms bare
Fingers hanging like excess wires
The gentry in their furs
Glance at us gloves to mouths
For us this is annual and familiar
But they have poor memory
And cannot recognize the signs
They know nothing of the world
Nothing worse than the sound of a chainsaw
Suddenly out of nowhere
Like from a joke shop's surprise box
A sturdy fist bursts from the tree trunk
Fortunately the blow misses
When the palm opens
There is plenty to wonder at
All mixed up are
The annual rings and
The lines of fate
The woodpecker best poet
Precisely taps
Its verse into the target
Searches for the wormy tree
Sometimes makes a mistake
Strikes at a branch joint
Beak flattened
Curses its birth
Opposites, not colors.
Flying about.
Stylish pattern, for mourning occasions.
Toes crisscrossed.
Rarely at home, for a reason.
Malicious laughter.
Not popular in the bird world,
also for a reason.
After shiny things.
Mostly reminds me
of a certain colleague.
Fate was not kind to my yard pine
(Though I bask in the warmth of kindling)
One day its face
Was desolate, as if in a coma
Cruelty from outside somehow
Zak zak just like that
Broke through
In the cleared yard opening now
Alone holds its head up
The thinned-out hero of a timber tragedy
Sparse crown
Flakes fall more densely
A thin paper is lowered upon us
Light weight
Writing about us
Is read to the end
What melancholy in the landscape!
Beauty of the woods, summer's bride
Is today escorted to winter's grave
Pale face dark hair
Veil new and unstained
In real life one doesn't see such
Two drops two sparkles
Two leaves intertwined with each other
In real life there are
One and many a countless pair
They cannot be added together
Or one soon becomes
Tomorrow's wrapper
In real life they say
We are dragged through the mud
It's there in black and white
Into soft or hard mud or frost
The leaves eventually settle
And even in water
Squint-eyed chance
Sets its handmade nets
But when tension releases
The tattered feeling heals
Under intact clothing
Original poems in Finnish by Ilpo Halo. Translated into English assisted by AI technology. Copyright remains with the author, Ilpo Halo.