The Trees The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too. Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh. Philip Larkin Last month (May 2020) trickled in, cool and grey, and gushed out in glorious sunshine. Perhaps that is what has helped to make the last few weeks of lockdown bearable. I picked one of our poetry anthologies ( The Ring of Words edited by Roger McGough, 1998, Faber & Faber) off the bookshelves and selected poems that I considered to be positive, soothing or uplifting. The poem above was surprisingly optimistic for Philip Larkin. So many people are writing either professionally or as amateurs about the current public health, economic and soci