No. 195. Oh Tall Tree in the Eye! "That's a big Tree," observed his neighbour Abigail--who was never above highlighting the obvious. "It's my answer to last week's shrinking before Armageddon," he told her. "Why so big?" . "It's the poet Rilke," he explained. "In the first of his Sonnets to Orpheus. Rilke talks of "a tree ascended there....:" "Where?" Abigail wanted to know. "In the attentive, worshipful mind. Rilke described this visionary tree as Pure transcendence. Oh tall tree in the ear! " "Or, in this case, "suggested Abigail, determined to be witty, 'a tall tree in the eye!' Rilke was a poet, after all, and not a painter."