The deer were startled as I cruised through Elmwood Cemetery in North Brunswick, New Jersey, though they were no more startled than I. Elmwood is a very urban cemetery and I did not expect to see five deer browsing the lush green vegetation. My little hybrid had turned off its internal combustion engine so the only noise was the four tires on a somewhat overgrown gravel path as I looked for Joyce Kilmer‘s cenotaph.
He was killed in France while engaged in World War I so his body is buried there but his name was added to the main stone of the family plot, thus my visit to his cenotaph instead of his grave.
Kilmer is primarily remembered today for Trees which is one of those rare poems that almost every English-speaker knows. Though it’s really only the first and last stanzas that are remembered. I love the poem for its brevity, the wonderful anthropomorphic images and it’s all about trees which I agree I’ve never seen a poem as beautiful as.
He loses me a little with the final line but that’s because I’m atheist. Of course, but only natural selection can make a tree would break the iambic tetrameter and I can still enjoy a poem even if I disagree with its thesis.
It’s been more than hundred years since it was first published and I’m sure this simple little poem will be remembered, maybe even revered, long after we’ve chopped down and burned the last of its subjects.
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 
It is a wonderful poem that is a joy to recite. đł Thank you for taking us on your travels. Your last sentence gives us something to think (deeply) about.
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Thank you, Michele. Let’s hope that last sentence is dystopic hyperbole.
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Welcome! Here’s to hoping… đ¤đť
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I wonder if his parents knew they gave him a girl name,
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I think they were in cahoots with Evelyn Waugh’s parents.
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Just because….
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16448
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Lovely! Of all the things I don’t remember from Orkney, trees were the most.
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We’re doing our best!
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I’m from Germany and didn’t know Joyce Kilmer and this wonderful poem. But now I’ve read it. Thank you for this interesting article.
I wish you all the best.
Greetings from the beautiful Rhine-Highlands / Germany…
Rosie
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Danke, Rosie! Kilmer’s Trees is just about the only poem of his we still read but it’s so good it’ll probably still be read long into the future.
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