Can You Imagine?

Mozart: Serenade for 12 Winds and String Bass

Dvorak: Serenade for Winds, Cello and Double Bass

Can you imagine
for example,
what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark
of a summer's night
or under
the white nets
of winter
but now, and now,
and now - whenever
we're not looking.
Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance,
from the root up,
wishing to travel a little,
not cramped so much
as wanting a better view,
or more sun,
or just as avidly
more shade -
surely you can't imagine

they just stand there
loving every minute of it,
the birds or the emptiness,
the dark rings
of the years
slowly and
without a sound
thickening, and
nothing different
unless the wind,
and then only in
its own mood,
comes to visit,
surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness,
like that.

--Mary Oliver
Can You Imagine?