Analysis of Acting Like A Tree
When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they're not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of "Joy to the World" I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.
Scheme | AXBXXCXBXX XXAXCXXACX XXXCXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101001100 100101001 10101101111011 101011111 011010100110 11011011110 0110101010111 101001101011 0010111101 1010111101 101010101111 1111000111 0010111110101 010111010011 101100101110100 1111011111 01011111101 10011111010 11111010101 01110011101011 0110011101010 1111001011110 011101111 11111010010 111011001010101 011101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,198 |
Words | 237 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 6 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 317 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 79 |
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"Acting Like A Tree" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/108270/acting-like-a-tree>.
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