Ginkgo Gift

I am a lover of ginkgo trees and the beautiful fan-shaped leaves, the idea that a prehistoric plant can survive through chance and great change and a few monks' cultivation, that a small Moravian man who brought back plants from a trip overseas could plant one in the middle of God's acre--all of this is amazing. That a friend could bring a basket of newly collected golden ginkgo leaves to my room and hand them to me wordlessly as I was in the midst of the most horrible time in my life is a gift I will never forget. Nemerov's poem is one I want to savor and comment on:

The Consent

Late in November, on a single night
Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk drop all their leaves
In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?
What in those wooden motives so decided
To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,
Rebellion or surrender? and if this
Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?
What use to learn the lessons taught by time,
If a star at any time may tell us: Now.
poem by Howard Nemerov
from "The Western Approaches" , 1975