Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The green tree dead, the dry one not
The green tree dead to the buried roots
The dry one lives in the silent soil.
In August now the poplar sheds
Leaves of summer, gold and red
Consumed by heat, consumed by drought
The new tree springs against the sky
A tree of thorns, a tree of blood
Five round branches never die
Inside the ring of leaves there stands
The Blessed Mary virginal
The fruit that lives held in her arms
The tree of beads surrounds them both
A tree of thorns that bears its leaves
Count them all, the fifty beads
In that ground there is a cross
Sown before in the silent earth
And from this root the soil gives birth