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Kilmer composed “Trees” in iambic tetrameter, which means that each line consists of four iambic feet. (Recall that an iamb has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word “to-day.”) The opening couplet offers a representative example:

     I think / that I / shall ne- / ver see
     A po- / em love- / ly as / a tree.

The choice of iambic tetrameter is very conventional, and as many readers will immediately recognize, the four-beat lines strongly recalls the rhythm of songs. Paired with the fact that each couplet rhymes, this meter gives the poem a sing-song quality that is appropriate for the relative simplicity of its message. As if to underscore this simplicity, Kilmer maintains iambic rhythm very consistently throughout the poem. The near-perfect regularity of the iambic tetrameter evokes a sense of balance that nicely reflects the poem’s overall concern with the virtues of God’s harmonious Creation.

Only one obvious deviation from perfect iambic rhythm occurs in the entire poem, and it appears in the final couplet (lines 11–12):

     Po-ems / are made / by fools / like me,
     But on- / ly God / can make / a tree. 

Note how the first foot of the first line is a trochee (stressed–unstressed), which briefly reverses the iambic rhythm seen throughout the rest of the poem. This reversal is highly significant, since it happens on the word poems. Of all the words in “Trees,” this is the only one that breaks with the overall metrical scheme. In doing so, it also interrupts the balance and harmony of the overall metrical scheme. This metrical interruption seems to prove the speaker’s point that no poem could ever be as lovely as a tree. For indeed, like God’s other creations, a tree would never disrupt the balanced harmony of Creation. Kilmer reaffirms this point by ending the poem on the word tree, the stress on which is, of course, perfectly in rhythm.

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