Lothrop, Montana

Lothrop, Montana
By Whittaker Chambers
June 30, 1926

The cottonwoods, the boy-trees,
Imberbe ¹ — the clean, green, central bodies
Standmg apart, freely, freely, but trammeled;
With the branches inter-resting — for support,
Never for caressing, except the wind blow.
And yet, leaning so fearfully into one another,
The leaves so penslle, so tremulous!y hung, as they lean
Unable to strain farther into one another
And be a part:
Held back where in the earth them secret roots
Wrap one about another, interstruggle and knot; the vital
Writhing in struggle; heavy, fibrous, underearthen life,
From which the sap mounts filllng those trembhng leaves
Of the boy-trees, the cottonwoods. ^{2 3}