Marsh Overlook

Trees drowned
in a wet silence:
stark, bare, they stand,
holding to existence
through their gray deadness.

Verdant banks,
soft in greenness;
rounded islands
domed in lushness;
reflections - muted, shimmering.
Ripples dance a contrast.

Deadness here
makes for life;
ducks swim tinily
in the vastness.

Nature is patterned
toward survival.

The luxury of flowing curves,
continuous, eternal.
Green banks furnish the
rounding
confines of reflecting pools.
No animate life
save two black ducks
calmly disturbing the
reflections.

That lone tree, its trunk six feet
submerged
is not dead.

No leaves, speaking life, 'tis true,
but birds stop to greet its
dead branches;
Soft breezes do not snap its
brittle stems;
water laps lovingly, stroking
its dark bulk;
while the sun warms its grayness.

No, the tree is not dead;
there can be no death
amid such beauty.

-Olga Laird Hinckley

The original poem.