The Self and the Mulberry
by Marvin Bell
I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry.
It had no trouble accepting its limits,
yet defining and redefining a small area
so that any shape was possible, any movement.
It stayed put, but was part of all the air.
I wanted to learn to be there and not there
like the continually changing, slightly moving
mulberry, wild cherry and particularly the willow.
Like the willow, I tried to weep without tears.
Like the cherry tree, I tried to be sturdy and productive.
Like the mulberry, I tried to keep moving.
I couldn’t cry right, couldn’t stay or go.
I kept losing parts of myself like a soft maple.
I fell ill like the elm. That was the end
of looking in nature to find a natural self.
Let nature think itself not manly enough!
Let nature wonder at the mystery of laughter.
Let nature hypothesize man’s indifference to it.
Let nature take a turn at saying what love is!
End of the poem
15 random poems
- in_between_the_strophes.html
- Purgatory by Maxine Kumin
- The Times Are Nightfall poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Mi ha el by Vinko Kalinić
- Олег Бундур – Переселение
- First Day at School by Roger McGough
- O Hymen! O Hymenee! by Walt Whitman
- Fragment on Sensibility by Robert Burns
- Justice by Rudyard Kipling
- Sandys Ghost ; A Proper Ballad on the New Ovid’s Metamorphosis poem – Alexander Pope
- Come Skating by Shel Silverstein
- Sweethearts of the Year by Vachel Lindsay
- Edom O’ Gordon poem – Andrew Lang poems
- “`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law” poem – Alfred Austin
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Липы
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).