Talking In Their Sleep

"You think I am dead,"
The apple tree said,
"Because I have never a leaf to show -
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!

"But I'm still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away -
But I pity the withered grass at my root."

"You think I am dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.

"I'm all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here -
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

"You think I am dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

"Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again -
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.

Edith Matilda Thomas  (1854 - 1925)