I have a lot of "poetry" that has never been published, mostly about trees.

So I'll fill this column with verse that hasn't been published elsewhere.

To a Cypress Tree

O cypress tree

growing in a swamp,

your grotesqueness

gives you a resemblance

to man.

Tall and substantial,

you flaunt your sturdiness,

unmindful of the fact

that your defects

are but sparsely covered

by your thin foliage.

Like man

you try to keep your head

in the clouds,

while your feet

are buried deep

in the mud.

A Growing Tree

A growing tree: eternity--

Synonymous they seem to me.

The tree some day will meet decay

And all of it will pass away;

The rotted wood will furnish good

Rich soil where once the old tree stood.

A tiny sprout will venture out

And soon its leaves will wave about.

The Beauty of Irregularity

Stately trees in an even row

With trunks as straight as sunbeams go,

A picture made by man--just so--

I look for trees with twisted boles;

Old cedars, dent and full of holes,

Or cypress like totem poles,

A row of tulips neat and straight,

Or round or square beds--these I hate;

And a row of sweetpeas by the gate--

But goldenrod along a lane,

Swamp marigolds and harebells plain,

And riant cosmos drenched with rain

The Way Between

From green to green is an endless way,

The breathing green at the pine tree's top

Is years away

From the sleeping moss at its feet.

The way between from green to green

Is rough and hard and grating,

With never a place for the eye to rest

from the dull drab space between

The green.

Upward from mossy smooth childhood

The way is irksome as pine tree bark,

With never a break in the roughness,

Never a twig to cling to.

Slowly climbing toward the living green

This is surely above,

Nothing can be done

Except perhaps to crawl

Under the shaggy bark to oblivion,

Hoping to irritate the life beneath

And cause it to thrust out a branch

Of green in protest

To break the barren brown.

Dr. A.O. Goldsmith of Kennett is a retired director of the School of Journalism, Louisiana State University.