April is Poetry Month 2011: "Segovia's Every Tree in Its Shadow"

This is poetry month and it shouldn't go by without ackowledgement, since it is the poets who from earliest times have most celebrated our deep connection with the natural world. Here is a poem by Mexican poet Francisco Segovia that I like.

First in English,

Every Tree in Its Shadow

Every tree in its shadow
shelters a different god.
In its uplifted solitude
it rocks him, whispers to him,
confides its secrets in him.

Every tree in its shadow
makes foliage from a faith
that wasn't born with him
and won't come to an end.

Every tree in its shadow feels
the depth of the immaterial
that men also feel
when they watch children from a distance.

And every once in awhile,
when it clouds up they learn
that a deeper and vaster shadow
shelters them too,
and rocks them and whispers to them
as it rains.

Translators Don Share and Cesar Perez

Now in the original Spanish. (My apologies for the lack of accents. When I figure out how to do so, I'll add them in. Update 5/1/11: now the poem is correct, thanks to Don P.)

Cada árbol en su sombra

Cada árbol en su sombra
cobija un dios distinto.
En su erguida soledad
lo mece, le susurra
y a el se fía en su secreto.

Cada árbol en su sombra
hace espesura de una fe
que no nació con el
ni acabara en el tiempo.

Cada árbol en su sombra siente
esa hondura de inmateria
que también sienten los hombres
cuando miran de lejos a los niños

Y solo de cuando en cuando,
cuando se nubla el día, reconocen
que una sombra mas vasta y mas honda
los cobija también a ellos.
Y los mece y les susurra
cuando llueve.

Francisco Segovia                                               

Meanwhile, it has stopped raining, the lettuce is up, and the bees are out--it's time to go out to the garden.

Note: Here is a review of two collections of Mexican poetry in English translation from ReVista.

Related Posts:
Meteorological Winter
Gardeners' Work
National Poetry Month in the Garden