To a Tree in Bloom

There is no silence lovelier than the one 
That flowers upon a flowering tree at night. 
There is no silence known beneath the sun 
That is so strange to bear, nor half so white. 
If I had all that silence in my heart, 
What yet unfinished heavens I could sing! 
My words lift up and tremble to depart, 
Then die in air, from too much uttering.
It must have been beneath a tree like this 
An angel sought a girl in Galilee, 
While she looked up and pondered how the kiss 
Of God had come with wings and mystery. 
It may be that a single petal fell. 
Heavy with sorrow that it could not tell.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 4, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“To a Tree in Bloom” by Hildegarde Flanner appears in the anthology, Poetry of Our Times (Scott, Foresman and Company, 1928), selected and edited by Sharon Brown of Brown University. The poem first appeared in Poetry: A Magazine in Verse, Vol. 23, No. 6, in March 1924.