Sometimes poets use opposite or contradictory statements to express many sides of a feeling. After all, smooth surfaces can be dangerous (think of the flat surface of a deep lake, for instance). Joseph Ceravolo was an American poet who often mixed similar and opposite ideas in his verse. In the following two poems Ceravolo suggests that natural objects that we often take for granted can be viewed as extraordinary, even unnatural. Ceravolo looks at trees and finds they contain wild feelings.
Snow fall like April:
the icicles stick. Like April
the birds float.
It is white foam.
Like April when the first tree blossoms
and you do not know it.
Happiness in the Trees
O height dispersed and head
in sometimes joining
these sleeps. O primitive touch
between fingers and dawn
on the back
You are no more
simple than a cedar tree
whose children change
the interesting earth
and promise to shake her
before the wind blows
away from you
in the velocity of rest
This quiz is part of the HTML-Only Self-Study Quizzes which is part of Activities for ESL Students, a project by The Internet TESL Journal.