OLD TREES was published in HOME WORKS, A Book of Tennessee Writers, Phyllis Tickle and Alice Swanson, Eds.,The University of Tennessee Press, 1996, and also appears on the George Scarbrough reading tape, Ice Storm and Other Poems Read by the Poet, George Scarbrough (Iris Audio Publications, 1997.)
OLD TREES
Crouch in the purple grass
Of the cratered field
In the low mountaintop.
Under the misplaced willow,
By the gnarled apple,
Something will cough your name,
A whistle will come. You
Will know how familiar:
Gate twisted on its hinge,
Chain drawn through an eye.
You can hear them opening
and closing as they move,
Calling you out:
Woodnotes that impinge
On that still passionate place:
Syllables of mossy silence,
Lobe and larynx
Of once lingual ground.
© George Scarbrough, 1996, 1997.
George Scarbrough comments: "For me there has always been, distinctly felt, a spirit of place: the presence, the voice of what once was, lingering, in my sense of mysticism, for the return of those who are. "Old Trees" is a poem of return."