The Tree that Wouldn't Shut Up!A Poem by David Lewis PagetI hated to pass the talking tree, It made me feel all undone, Raveling on in its revery Like a racquet, coming unstrung, What made it worse was the silken voice Not matching a stringybark’s, If I’d been offered a simple choice I’d rather the voice was harsh.
It tried to attract my attention there Each time I ventured to pass, ‘What are you going to do, just stare?’ It said, ‘Well, kiss my a*s!’ It always tried to embarrass me By being uncouth, and loose, I said, ‘You’re surely the rudest tree, We haven’t been introduced.’
It quoted Coleridge by the ream Whenever I wore my hat, ‘A painted ship on a painted sea, Now what do you think of that?’ ‘I don’t know where you borrowed that line I said, I have no notion, it’s “As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean!”’
It used to sulk when it got it wrong To wave its trunk with a clatter, ‘Who’d believe,’ it would say to me, ‘That getting it right would matter?’ ‘I think He would, old S.T.C. Would listen, hear, and note it, Nor be impressed that a talking tree Would get it wrong, and quote it.’
I turned up there with a saw one day And the talking tree had cried, ‘I say, I’m not going to cut you down,’ I said, but it knew I lied. For‘April is the cruellest month,’ I said, and I wasn’t kidding, I saw through its Eliot, silenced its Pound And cut off its Little Gidding.
David Lewis Paget
© 2017 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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Added on January 4, 2016Last Updated on January 4, 2017 Tags: raqcqet, stringybark, rudest, S.T.C. Author
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