Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
The forest is a place to run to and hide in,
turn into a tree, lose oneself.
In the forest you may walk wherever you please,
and the benevolent trees—
may be kindly,
but they're helpless.
If you yourself could inhabit
a tree... ?
Don't you understand? There are those
who flee and those who attack.
And the trees?
The trees are witnesses, but dumb or unwilling...
I've heard them groan.
They lack language!
You’re thinking of jungles. I inhabit—
A well-kept forest? Jungles are safer.
At least one knows what to expect.
But the forest is a place to run to and hide in,
turn into a tree.
Lose oneself!
There are, as everyone know, winners and losers, workers and shirkers, those who can and those who couldn’t, those who must and those who mustn’t. That is, after all, the way of the world. And so, when a grasshopper sang all day long all through the summer and did no work, and when an ant laboured and stored food against the winter, this surprised no one.
Winter came and the grasshopper was hungry. The ant gave him food (about half as much as was actually needed), a short lecture and a bit of advice. The following summer the grasshopper sang, the ant worked, and when winter came, the grasshopper again had no food. The ant gave him half of what she had last given him, a long scolding and more good advice. The grasshopper survived somehow, and when summer came he sang all day long. And when winter came, the grasshopper was hungry and the ant impatient. This time she gave him a quarter of what she had originally given him. It wasn’t enough. The lakes froze over and the snow fell. The grasshopper got thinner and thinner, until one day a bitter wind lifted him up to carry him away to a still colder country. On the way the grasshopper died.
The moral of the story? There isn’t one. It’s an immoral tale.
i Flowers falling
It grieved her:
flowers falling without hesitation
straight from the tree and into the garbage pit.
They could have fallen by the wayside, briefly
proclaimed their undisputed glory.
People would have smiled.
But this
makes other nations sneer.
It makes them say
that this is our notion of efficiency.
And they are right.
ii The Sleepy Headed Tree
She tells me that the sleepy headed tree
– its name in Tamil –
has discreet flowers, not easily seen,
till they fall and make
a carpet at the base of the tree. Then
they’re gathered up
and turned into fodder which cattle like
exceedingly.
What is she saying?
That these sleepy-headed flowers,
obscure in their lifetime, helpful in their death:
are, in their way, exemplary?
I respond with the resplendence of the Magnolia.
Stellata.
“Otherwise known as Galactica
or the Tree of a Thousand Cascading Stars.”
I lie magnificently in order to praise the tree
in my English garden.
She does not demur. Nor does she say
that it came from Japan.
She doesn’t seem to mind where
it came from.
And if I were to say
that this tree is emblematic,
she would smile and not ask
what it’s an emblem of.
iii Walking trees
She saw a woman bent over drawing
perfect curves around perfect dots –
a kolam on the ground. She says that the lines
of her torso
as her hands moved
were like the lines of a dancer.
I suddenly understand..
“We’re walking trees!”
“And the trees?” she asks
“Are dancers too,” I reply
with conviction.
“Their flowers move like skilful fingers.”
iv The Handkerchief Tree
I offer a story.
about the Handkerchief Tree.
It does what it promises:
it grows handkerchiefs.
And if approached cautiously,
addressed respectfully,
it has been known to do more.
There are rules, of course.
First, you must understand
its Chinese origins.
It’s lonely here,
and it’s doing you a favour
by agreeing to live.
Next you must cry –
not ordinary tears,
but heart rending sobs.
And not because you mean to.
It must happen by chance.
You might be walking in a garden
somewhere;
and if tears rise,
and the tree senses them,
it will throw you
a handkerchief.
You must pick it up.
Wipe your face.
After that
tears will cease
for at least six weeks,
possibly more.
v Two trees
In return she tells me about
the Friendship Trees.
They grow side by side, plonked down
in India
from two different continents.
They’ve survived
the foreign weather,
grown tall together
and probably by now
they quite like it here.
Summer after summer
they bloom partially –
only half the tree blooms -
and people walking by,
remark how the flowers
turn to each other.