This is the tree where you carved your name <br />at the junction of three woodland pathways, <br />hoping to be part of its long living. <br /> <br />But what you missed was the child <br />teetering past on a shiny new bicycle; <br />The girl and boy walking shyly apart, <br />hesitating over untried pathways; <br />The old man, breathless, with a stick. <br /> <br />You never witnessed the breaking of buds in Spring, <br />The cool coat of summer leaves and birdsong, <br />The splintering agony of furious autumn gales, <br />and the bleak loneliness of bare winter branches.<br /><br />William Barton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/name-carved-on-a-tree/
