The Botticellian Trees | A poem by William Carlos Williams, 1930

Sandro Botticelli, La historia de Nastagio degli Onesti, second episode, 1483 (detail)

The alphabet of
the trees

is fading in the
song of the leaves

the crossing
bars of the thin

letters that spelled
winter

and the cold
have been illumined

with
pointed green

by the rain and sun
the strict simple

principles of
straight branches

are being modified
by pinched out

ifs of color, devout
conditions

the smiles of love

. . . . . . . .

until the stript
sentences

move as a woman’s
limbs under cloth

and praise from secrecy
quick with desire

love’s ascendancy
in summer–

In summer the song
sings itself

above the muffled words–

William Carlos Williams, The Botticellian Trees, 1930