Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dorianne Laux’s “The Life of Trees” is a meditation on the quiet, stoic existence of trees, contrasted with the harried, responsibility-laden life of humans. Through vivid imagery and contemplative tone, the poem explores themes of resilience, simplicity, and the inescapable burdens of human reality.

The poem opens with a soundscape: “The pines rub their great noise / into the spangled dark,” evoking a nocturnal symphony that merges natural and domestic realms. The anthropomorphic description of trees scratching their “itchy boughs against the house” introduces a sense of interplay between the natural world and human habitation. However, this interaction is not harmonious; instead, it carries the weight of responsibility and irritation. The speaker’s thought immediately turns to maintenance: dragging the ladder, climbing the roof, and sawing branches—a litany of burdens tied to ownership and human obligation.

This transition from the pines’ enigmatic moan to the speaker’s mundane chore underscores a central tension in the poem: the contrast between the serene, detached life of trees and the frenetic, duty-bound existence of humans. The speaker views reality as “a long exhaustive cringe / from the blade, the teeth,” where labor and struggle dominate. This grim view of human life casts the trees’ existence in a wistful, almost enviable light.

The speaker’s longing to “dream the life of trees” marks a shift in tone, opening a window into the imagined experience of these beings. Trees are portrayed as serene entities indifferent to human constructs like “Money, Politics, Power, Will or Right.” Their desires are simple and elemental, tied to the cycles of nature: the dimming stars, an owl lifting from their limbs, the moist earth beneath them. In this fantasy, trees are free from the ceaseless demands of ambition or control, existing instead in a state of unpretentious being.

The personification of trees continues with humor and insight. They are imagined as carefree, rolling pinecones “down the empty streets” and shrugging blame “on the cold wind.” This whimsical image paints them as unconcerned and unburdened, a sharp contrast to the speaker’s world of tools, ladders, and maintenance. Yet, even as the trees embody an enviable simplicity, the poem acknowledges their vulnerability. The storms test their endurance, and the hurricanes and fires loom as existential threats. The “young ones / bend and bend,” while the older trees accept the possibility of falling, sacrificing their branches to the earth. In these moments, the trees’ stoicism is a form of silent strength; they endure without prayer or protest, responding to loss with sticky sap and the persistence of breath.

Laux’s language is richly textured, blending tactile and auditory imagery to evoke the trees’ presence. The descriptions of “furry bark” and clouds “shredding like ancient lace” imbue the natural world with a sense of fragility and timelessness. The trees’ resilience, expressed in their ability to “clap the water from their needles, straighten their spines / and breathe,” serves as a metaphor for perseverance, a lesson in enduring life’s trials without complaint.

The poem’s closing lines, with their emphasis on the cyclical act of breathing, highlight the trees’ quiet vitality. Despite their wounds—represented by the concentric circles of their rings and the sap oozing from them—the trees continue to exist, unbroken by the forces that threaten them. Their survival is not framed as triumph but as a natural and inevitable process, a testament to their connection with the earth and the elements.

In “The Life of Trees”, Laux uses the metaphor of trees to reflect on human frailty and resilience. The poem contrasts the speaker’s weary perspective on human life with the trees’ unassuming strength, finding in their simplicity a kind of wisdom. At the same time, the trees’ struggles with storms and fire serve as a reminder that endurance is universal, transcending the boundaries between human and natural worlds. Ultimately, the poem offers a meditation on existence, suggesting that survival—whether human or arboreal—is rooted in the ability to face life’s challenges with quiet persistence.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...