Before the fifteenth of Shevat
a tree was crying: “I can’t talk!”
I should feel sorry for it, but
it should have cried, “I cannot walk!”
Yet strangely this tree turned out able
to talk when it was Tu B’Shevat,
but, chopped down, it became a table,
which made sure that its mouth was shut.
The table could not speak, you see,
although they made it from the wood
they got from that poor chopped-down tree
which so disturbed the neighborhood.
The table hoped that it might walk,
because they’d given it four legs,
but each was stiffer than a stalk,
afraid to move, as if on eggs.
Should the tree have spoken? No!
It’s very wrong for any tree
to talk. A tree’s supposed to grow
in silence. Surely you agree.
What this sad tree tale thus may mean
may sound to you a bit absurd.
Like children, all trees should be seen,
and just like children, not be heard.
At least, that’s what they used to say
to me when young, and what I’m told
by my own children every day,
no scolding them
since I am old.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
