Generations
Amy Lowell, 1919
You are like the stem
Of a young beech-tree,
Straight and swaying,
Breaking out in golden leaves.
Your walk is like the blowing of a beech-tree
On a hill.
Your voice is like leaves
Softly struck upon by a South wind.
Your shadow is no shadow, but a scattered sunshine;
And at night you pull the sky down to you
And hood yourself in stars.
But I am like a great oak under a cloudy sky,
Watching a stripling beech grow up at my feet.
“You are like the stem/Of a young beech-tree,/Straight and swaying,/Breaking out in golden leaves./Your walk is like the blowing of a beech-tree/On a hill.”
Yah, no wonder! The old guy’s the one carrying all that wood.
I thought this painting was a perfect pairing for the poem. The old man bears a heavy load of dead wood, like the weight of years. The young girl holds no greater burden than fresh flowers.