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Knop

The trees

The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
The greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too. 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles tresh 
In fullgrown thickness every May. 
Last year is dead, they seem to say, 
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. 

Philip Larkin