The Trees by Philip Larkin (1922 – 1985) was published in his fourth and final volume of poetry, High Windows in 1974. It meditates, laments but ultimately celebrates the life-cycle of trees. Time lapse videos by Neil Bromhall demonstrate the anatomical wonder of opening tree leaf buds that will be occurring everywhere in the coming weeks.
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.