Quiet reflection

I'm a bit overwhelmed with the past week, perhaps with the past few weeks which, in a way culminated with my great-grandson's third birthday party yesterday, a small family dinner, bringing the huge public events and several nice and satisfying personal events into some kind of harmony and balance. 

All of April I have been reading a lot of poetry and sharing it with people around me. Spring is here in all its fickleness: rain yesterday, sun today, flowers opening, trees greening.  I'm not entirely sure about the title of this poem by J.D. McClatchy, "Resignation" but his thoughts seems complex and yet simple.  Peaceful -- I need that this week.

Here the oak and silver-breasted birches
Stand in their sweet familiarity
While underground, as in a black mirror,
They have concealed their tangled grievances,
Identical to the branching calm above
But there ensnared, each with the others' hold
On what gives life to which is brutal enough.
Still, in the air, none tries to keep company
Or change its fortune  They seem to lean
On the light, unconcerned with what the world
Makes of their decencies , and will not show
A jealous purchase on their length of days.
 To never having been loved as they wanted
Or deserved, to anyone's sudden infatuation
Gouged into their sides, to all they are forced
To shelter and to hide, they have resigned themselves.