Native Trees

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Neither my father nor my mother knew 
the names of the trees 
where I was born
what is that
I asked and my
father and mother did not
hear they did not look where I pointed 
surfaces of furniture held 
the attention of their fingers 
and across the room they could watch
walls they had forgotten 
where there were no questions 
no voices and no shade

Were there trees
where they were children 
where I had not been 
I asked
were there trees in those places
where my father and my mother were born 
and in that time did
my father and my mother see them
and when they said yes it meant
they did not remember
What were they I asked what were they 
but both my father and my mother
said they never knew

© William Stanley Merwin