Happy Birthday, Tom

Thomas Wolfe was born today in 1900.

Some people say modern poetry is just prose laid out on the page in uneven lines. Well, no - that's not poetry. But back in 1945 John S. Barnes published a little book called "A Stone, A Leaf, A Door" which revealed the poetry inherent in the Wolfe's magical prose:

The plum-tree, black and brittle,
Rocks stiffly in winter wind.
Her million little twigs are frozen
In spears of ice.

But in the Spring, lithe and heavy,
She will bend under her great load
Of fruit and blossoms.
She will grow young again.

Red plums will ripen,
Will be shaken desperately upon the tiny stems.
They will fall bursted
On the loamy warm wet earth.

When the wind blows in the orchard
The air will be filled with dropping plums;
The night will be filled
With the sound of their dropping.

And a great tree of birds will sing,
Burgeoning, blossoming richly,
Filling the air also
With warm-throated, plum-dropping bird-notes.