April 4, 2012

• Spring in Appalachia

  Spring has sprung early here in Georgia, but I still have hopes that I can locate one of these service trees that inspired this poet who grew up not to far from where I live. The Bradford Pears (Callery) are particularly aromatic; the neighbor’s apple trees not so much.

  

  We Could Wish Them a Longer Stay

   

  Plum, peach, apple and pear
  And the service tree on the hill
  Unfold blossom and leaf.
  From them comes scented air
  As the brotherly petals spill.
  Their tenure is bright and brief.

  We could wish them a longer stay,
  We could wish them a charmed bough
  On a hill untouched by the flow
  Of consuming time; but they

  Are lovelier, dearer now
  Because they are soon to go,
  Plum, peach, apple and pear
  And the service blooms whiter than snow.

                               -Byron Herbert Reece (in Bow Down in Jericho, 1950)

  
  

  Have you ever seen a service bloom?

  Here’s a link to the Georgia Native Plant Society’s page about the Serviceberry.

  Here’s a link to a short article about the poem.

  Here’s a link to my 2008 selection by Reece.

  Here

  • 6:51 am
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