Regarding Trees and a War
“War does not determine who is right-only who is left”.
The poet Joyce Kilmer was born in New Jersey in 1886. He studied journalism and after graduation joined a high school as a teacher of Latin. He also wrote poems and essays and slowly established himself as a poet and literary critic. He married poet Aline Murray and they had five children.
He later developed a close friendship with a Jesuit priest James Daly. Under Daly’s influence, Kilmer and his wife became Catholics. His poems show his love for his religion and for nature. He was considered the leading American Catholic poet of his time.
And then the United States joined World War I. Kilmer chose to enlist in the army. He worked as an intelligence officer in Europe and was killed by a sniper’s bullet in 1918.
His most famous poem is ‘Trees’ and it is in the public domain.
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain’
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
A 3800-acre forest in North Carolina was dedicated to Kilmer in 1936. The Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is still a magnificent reservoir of nature with trees that are more than four centuries old. A fitting memorial to a man who described his love for nature is such a moving manner. He was a very talented artist whose life was tragically cut short by war.
Yet, his was not the only life that ended in this manner. Kilmer was a prominent figure in literary circles. His absence was felt by many people. However, in World War I around 8,500,000 soldiers and about 13,000,000 civilians died. Most of them are nameless and faceless and their stories were only known to their loved ones. The enormity of the wasted potential and the shattered dreams is staggering.
If ever we find ourselves, even ineffectually, supporting war as the answer to ongoing problems, we should think of the young poet who died more than a century ago. And of the poems that have remained unwritten because of that.
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