Poem by the Dutch poet Erik Menkveld

KEEP GROWING

Don’t bloody care, keep growing

up everywhere, filmy or knotted,

upright or skewed, to laws no

human can fathom. And the reasons?

To make lanes out of streets, villages

pricy and posh? To block the light or

view of the prettiest places?

OK, you can find one so splendid

on some winter’s day, hours later it still

stands out in the cyclist who saw it.

But close together they have

hardly a chance to command any attention.

Too old hat moreover

for stove or shipyard, they increasingly

get in the way. And that smidgen

of oxygen they are producing!

Yet never is the usefulness of

trees something you hear questioned.

They’re even grown to serve

as trays on people’s bureaus.