If the sky were green instead of blue its green would be the aspenleaves which have the same inlighted sweet intensity of tone and are the first to come in spring closefollowed by hickory ash hawthorn and the rest with butternut last Each has its own conception of green some yellow some blue some like the rockmaple reddish nor is any leaf precisely like any other Their tide assaults the mountain by way of the gradual foothills Greening breakers lunge and snap at the heights counting the evenings forest by forest until the waves splash on the far high summit announcing the actual world in the heyday of the leaves. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE MORAL WARFARE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CURE FOR AFFLICTIONS by ARCHILOCHUS HOMER by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN PSALM 1. THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED CONTRASTED by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |