The landscape trembles, Trembling under the sun, And the trees, as unfriendly as they are, Shiver with each breath of the wind, Their limbs raised in supplication, To the thick sap that slowly rises.

The birds are talking above, But they seem to spout nothing around, Words deflected like the light of the sun In rays that scatter through the leaves.

The sky broadens like a sheet of ice, While the clouds rest on pins, And the earth spins on, ignoring, What the trees seem to whisper, even in silence.

• Stephen Spender