I wish to be a tree
None bigger may there be
With blackness sprawling underneath
With glowworms crawling free;
And eyeless moles and rats,
Ten thousand swinging bats –
All these be crawling in the dark
While at the top will sing the lark
And sunlight will be dancing in a million hues of green and gold –
On my dome of leaves as great as mountains, and just as old.
I would make my blooms
Every night and day,
All hues of rainbow mixing
And fragrances of May.
They will take them home,
Embellishing Benares, Rome…
To offer the gods that they admire
Concentrated lust, desire…
While in their mouths they curse and hush and will not see what it is they pluck –
The flowers will also have my disdain stamped on them; I give no fuck.
I won’t stop, I’ll grow
Vaster and more free
Till the horizon shows
Another prolific tree.
His form will be as mine,
And we will then entwine
Over continents and oceans our boughs,
Above the sprawling lands and water’s flows –
And be forever in a kiss from wood to wood in a supreme arch
With all the life on planet earth agape at our eternal March.
