Bending Bay Tree Photo © Peter Y. Chou— Bending Bay Tree on Middlefield Road, Palo Alto taken on October 30, 2013, 4:24 pm

Walking to Foothill College on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto, I pass many Bay Trees and Oaks all standing straight and upright. But one Bay Tree is bent— twisted in the letter Y-shape, and I've never stopped to ask why until now, since Bay Trees bend toward creek water and everything over here is dry. So following its branches to the street corner and to my surprise— it's Keats Court! Ah!— "Ode on a Grecian Urn" where John Keats sings unheard sweeter melodies beneath the trees in forest branches & happy boughs. Severn paints "Portrait of Keats, Listening to a Nightingale on Hampstead Heath" in a forest grove with tall Y-shaped trees behind him. Keats wrote to John Taylor in 1818— "If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all." I quoted the above letter in a "Tree Poem" 24 years ago and the cycle returned today like clockwork as a Bay Tree bends toward Keats Court to honor the poet who loves trees paying homage to them in his verses as I'm doing now full of joy.     — Peter Y. Chou         Mountain View, 10-30-2013

Bay Tree Bending to Keats Court Joseph Severn, "Portrait of Keats listening to a nightingale on Hampstead Heath" Signpost: Keats Ct & Middlefield Rd