#7 Tree Leaves — Summary

I glare upon trees and leaves because they simply fall and grow back again, but my heart fell for you and it smashed to pieces...

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The speaker is jealous of something as ordinary as a tree. Leaves fall every autumn, yet they return, and that easy cycle of loss and renewal is exactly what the speaker feels they can't have. The glare in the first line is half joke, half grudge: it's a little silly to be angry at foliage, but heartbreak makes people irrational.

The turn comes with "but my heart fell for you." The poem plays on the word "fell," linking the leaves dropping from a branch to the speaker falling in love. The difference is what happens next. Leaves land and begin again, while the speaker's heart "smashed to pieces," a harsher, more final image than a gentle drop.

The mood is wistful and raw, with a touch of bitter humor. The trailing ellipsis leaves the thought hanging, as if the speaker is still sitting in the hurt and has no tidy ending to offer.

Read also

More by TaylortheDinosaur

All poems
SadTaylortheDinosaur

#14 Her name

It hurts when you hear her name as it rolls sweetly off his tongue and how you wish her name would sleep soundly on your lips than on his every night...
SadTaylortheDinosaur

#34 Souls

All the souls are lost to the empty fishbowl and are alone, swimming in circular motions, awaiting someone to help them back to the ocean's blue world...
ContemplativeTaylortheDinosaur

#48 Cannot Forget

Forgive is to forget; but how do you forget a scar?