The speaker observes the trees and how each seems to connect with another. This connection is expressed through a simile that compares the natural and chaotic arrangement of trees appear to the power of speech. The first stanza joins into the second stanza to create a metaphor of the trees—which are not mentioned specifically, but the title of poem lends the “these” which opens the open a pretty solid interpretative definition—as how relationships are established among humans beings.
The second stanza informs the reader that the narrative is taking place in the morning. Now the trees are personified by being endowed with the power of speech and the incipient sentience to tell the narrator and the unidentified “neighbor” what they are and, even better, that they are soon going to be given the opportunity and the allowance to touch. To love. To explain.
What they are not allowed to do is feel any sort of pride at having created the beauty which surrounds them in the form of some trees which provide such a stunning and beautiful backdrop to their meeting. It is now that the silence of the natural word begins to come alive and this entire portrait of the natural world is transformed into metaphor which expands beyond portraiture to be described as a chorus of smiles.
It is morning—that we already knew—and now we learn it is winter. There is something about the coldness and the sounds and the beauty that brings to the narrator the sense that the slowly transformation of the day seems almost a display of restraint and discretion. This reticence—as the narrator describes it—becomes an almost artificial decorative accent or even a performance that keeps the deeper truths revealed and undisclosed to those who may be mere intruders.
