Excerpt from The Wild White Snow Gum: Collected Verse

The Wild White Snow Gum

"Have you a favourite tree?" they asked,
Knowing I love all trees.
"The Scarlet Oak or Silver Birch?
Could it be one of these?

"What of the Willow's slender green?
Or the Poplar's dark red vein?
Is it the pink of the Chestnut flowers
That border the grey-green Seine?

"Is it the Larch? or the age-old Beech
In whose shadow the Primrose grow?
The delicate Acacia Tree
With its blossom of scented snow?

"Your first love? Is it the noble Pine?
The Oak? or the Aspen Tree?
Or the strong wild green Pisonia
That holds a tryst with the sea?"

So many glorious far-famed trees!
Yet never a doubt in mind,
The tree that I love the best of all
Is quite a different kind.

Alone on the ranges, wild and white,
Torn by the winds and snow,
Twisted arms as in anguish flung,
Where no other tree could grow.

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