1)The hearts of trees
are serially displaced
pressed annually
outward to a ring.
They (=trees) aren’t really
what we mean
by hearts, they so
2) easily acquiesce,
willing to thin and
stretch around some
upstart green. 3) A
real heart does not
give way to 4) spring.
A heart is true.
5) I say no more springs
without you.
1) 나무의 heart는 계속바껴요. ring = growth ring(나이테)
2) 나무는 green에 쉽게 굴복한다. 순리대로 흘러가버린다.
3) enjambment
4) 인간의 heart는 green에 굴복하지 않는다.
5) 나는 그대가 없으면 봄을 못느껴요.
Ryan borrows a phenomenon from the natural world and turns it into a human metaphor. She knows the inner layer of a tree’s growth ring is called “spring wood.” That’s when the growth is rapid and the wood less dense than later in the season, when “summer wood” forms, at least in temperate zones. The metaphor works because it’s not true to our nature. People are not trees. Ryan takes a valentine rhyme – “true”/”you” – and reanimates it, as she surreptitiously rhymes “pressed” and “acquiesce,” “mean” and “green.” No one rhymes more wittily, and the final two lines can be read as a renunciation of love or a pledge of devotion.
The speaker wants to say a ture heart is different from the rings inside of the tree in that it will not give way easily.