Daphne

And if I was changed, what was the difference?
And if I was strung — myself and not myself,
a double thing, there was a consequence.
When I was a girl, I was a girl.
And now I'm a tree, I'm a tree.

Seasons don't arrive. There's just a shifting.
We move. I see it now. The staid worlds move,
and the sun is no dragged lamp. The gods die,
or never lived. They crawl home, damp and slow,
to the subtle, shallow sea that made them.

I'm not that happy. It's not important.
And I'm not sad. It's good to be a girl,
and a tree, with the wind in it. It's good
to move in the wind, and to move the wind.
My leaves all move. They sing, and make the world.

Copyright © 2008 Emma Jones All rights reserved
from Poetry London
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission