The poem continues: “. . . only hum some low green note, roll their pinecones down the empty streets and blame it, with a shrug, on the cold wind. During the day they sleep inside their furry bark, clouds shredding like ancient lace above their crowns.” These wonderful sentences, which are in “The Life of Trees” by Dorianne Laux, start with the word that is indispensable to many poets: “if.” This word invites you to see what is not there. I like stopping, and pausing, so that I can imagine, as this poet does, dreaming about the life of trees.
Dorianne Laux, Facts About The Moon (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), p.17.