Tortoise Family Connections
On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?
His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings,
And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin.
A mere obstacle,
He veers round the slow great mound of her --
Tortoises always foresee obstacles.
It is no use my saying to him in an emotional voice:
'This is your Mother, she laid you when you were an egg.'
He does not even trouble to answer: 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?'
He wearily looks the other way,
And she even more wearily looks another way still,
Each with the utmost apathy,
Incognisant,
Unaware,
Nothing.
As for papa,
He snaps when I offer him his offspring,
Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him,
Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible tortoise
Being touched with love, and devoid of fatherliness.
Father and mother,
And three little brothers,
And all rambling aimless, like little perambulating pebbles scattered in the garden,
Not knowing each other from bits of earth or old tins.
Except that papa and mama are old acquaintances, of course,
Though family feeling there is none, not even the beginnings.
Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless
Little tortoise.
Row on then, small pebble,
Over the clods of the autumn, wind-chilled sunshine,
Young gaiety.
Does he look for a companion?
No, no, don't think it.
He doesn't know he is alone;
Isolation is his birthright,
This atom.
To row forward, and reach himself tall on spiny toes,
To travel, to burrow into a little loose earth, afraid of the night,
To crop a little substance,
To move, and to be quite sure that he is moving:
Basta!
To be a tortoise!
Think of it, in a garden of inert clods
A brisk, brindled little tortoise, all to himself --
Adam!
In a garden of pebbles and insects
To roam, and feel the slow heart beat
Tortoise-wise, the first bell sounding
From the warm blood, in the dark-creation morning.
Moving, and being himself,
Slow, and unquestioned,
And inordinately there, O stoic!
Wandering in the slow triumph of his own existence,
Ringing the soundless bell of his presence in chaos,
And biting the frail grass arrogantly,
Decidedly arrogantly.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Related quotes
Baby Tortoise
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird,
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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The Tortoise (Love Poem)
This girl came to my party,
And petted my tortoise,
In nineteen sixty four,
When I was eight, and
No-one noticed, not even me.
She still complains today
That she missed out on
Her jelly and ice-cream,
When she was seven, and
No one noticed, not even me.
I think when ten years later this
Beautiful blonde said yes, she
Would be mine, and is today, this
Tortoise slow was still around, and
No one noticed, not even me.
I tell our children now grown-up,
That I have found a tortoise is
The perfect way to find the girl,
Who will be yours forever, when
You are eight and she is seven.
poem by Ian Beckett
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Tortoise Shell
The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.
Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.
Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the baby tortoise shell.
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Then twenty-four, and a tiny little keystone.
It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back
Of the baby tortoise;
Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet,
Not in stone, like the Judean Lord, or bronze, but in life-clouded, life-rosy tortoise shell.
The first little mathematical gentleman
Stepping, wee mite, in his loose trousers
Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law.
Fives, and tens,
Threes and fours and twelves,
All the volte face of decimals,
The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven.
Turn him on his back,
The kicking little beetle,
And there again, on his shell-tender, earth-touching belly,
The long cleavage of division, upright of the eternal cross
And on either side count five,
On each side, two above, on each side, two below
The dark bar horizontal.
The Cross!
It goes right through him, the sprottling insect,
Through his cross-wise cloven psyche,
Through his five-fold complex-nature.
So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.
The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvednes,s of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this pediment
Of all creation,
This slow one.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Tortosise and the Hare: The true story
So you think tortoise
won the race,
not so.
Today the last
of Hare's descendants
passed on.
Oh his death
bed from his
lips came this,
my great, great
so many grandfather
was bribed,
to throw the race,
to the Tortoise
by the way of carrots,
his greatest weakness
you didn't really think
the Tortoise could have
won do you. Then he passed on.
wrote 4-14-07
A Tortoise's World!
Story of a tortoise who hid in his shell
Under the rock in the well
That is where it would dwell
Until one day a frog chased by a snake, did fell
Both, tortoise and frog were friends since they met
They had so much to talk, a lot of fun, you bet
Frog wanted to go home, leave a new friend, not to forget
Frog left, promised, soon it shall return and bring friends to get
Days passed and tortoise was sad and lonely
It rained and rained, and then came the day lovely
Frog came and came Frogs, croaking and singing jolly
Also were there tortoises, fishes and snails, Joy filled the world wholly!
poem by Manjeshwari P MYSORE
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A tortoise
the tortoise is just inadequate
she has been treating
the same way everyone
of another kind
a supercilious front
to shroud weaknesses
broadcasting insouciance
with a hard hard shell
she knows she has a birthright
a hard headed advantage
with its shell signed
with letters from heaven
nobody is allowed even to knock on
it, protected species
here she is behaving in ways
that turn people away
without even knowing why
ten thousand years from now
she would be still in her same state
and behaving the same way
one big curvy hard hard shell
as the world shuttles to a new sphere
poor tortoise! poor tortoise!
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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The developers, if they decide to move a tortoise, have to pay the long-term costs for enhancing the areas that take care of the tortoise, and it gives us the opportunity to manage an area that is going to be protected.
quote by Gale Norton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To The Students
y do u think u r ill,
is it bcoz xam fear u feel.
is it bcoz u think too much abt marks,
or is it coz if u fail your future darks.
does dis mean,
it is true what we have in past seen.
student die boz of stress due to xam,
i suggest u dont do it fam...
y dont u understand.......
dis s not da tym ur hopes plane sud land...
u need to do in lyf lot of thing,
and dere still remains ur lyf to sing.
its tym everyone sud give a second thought,
remember da passion with which your parents fought.
think for whom did dey do dis before,
u do anything worse more.
remember about the tortoise and hare tale,
in which the tortoise did nt fail.
though s/he was slow,
s/he didnot let his/her heart go low..
so pals lets have fun,
and lets say all dis tym its done.
lets show it to all,
we rise and rise high every time we fall..........................
poem by Ajitav Basak
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In the Garden, With My Father
It is spring.
As in my garden, I stand.
In the garden -
My father is there;
... though long since gone...
He IS there.
I tend to the weeds,
The veggies and flowers...
He is there.
I never understood him
(as I should have, could have) ...
Until now,
Here, in the garden.
Where I, like he, work the soil.
I've come just recently
(these last few years)
To enjoy and love my garden so.
- I am not as surprised afterall, as I would have thought,
To find him here.
Here, in the garden.
He loved his garden very much.......
I - at that early age of restless youth - had no use
For such slow moving things.
But now, I see, and myself move, at a much slower pace.
Therefore, it is him I am here and now able to see,
In the garden.
Watching it all grow, so peacefully.
It is somewhat sad, that now,
When I can no longer tell him,
I understand.
For I have come to find... I love the garden too,
Just as much as he;
And we both always will.
My father - standing in the garden -
I now know.
After all these long years.
And I've missed him so;
But, how wonderful to find,
He IS here...
In the garden, our garden,
Always, with me.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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Watch The Race
Watch the race
Here is the hare
And the tortoise
It is funny for the hare
And a serious game
For tortoise.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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Slow and steady wins the race.
Aesop in The Hare and the Tortoise
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Jackie III
Fat as grease and slow as the tortoise,
I am like a virgin who is now betrothed;
But, take care of the woman you've humbled,
Because, Jackie is the name of my friend.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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can speed be the key?
slow, steady, in no hurry
the tortoise wins...
haiku by Mamta Agarwal
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Slow Moving Sea
If you ever feel youll lose your dreams
Or your hope seems too far gone
Ill bring the distance to your door
You couldnt ask for any more
You were around when I needed a friend
You were the means you were the end
Youll be the one Ill turn to now
Theres gonna be some hard times coming down
Without you the world would be so crowded
Without you the moon would be so clouded
Without you I can be anyone
Anyone at all but myself
If ever your candle wont blow out
Or your sorrow seems so interrupted
Well Ill be the first to bring the darkness down
Ill be the silence at your side
Without you the music couldnt move me
The words would ring true
But the tune would feel so empty
Without you I can be anyone
Anyone at all but myself
But myself
Wish I was a slow moving sea
Moving away from the land so cautiously
Id find me an island to surround
Just like you did as I was feeling down
As I was feeling down
Without you the world would be so crowded
Without you the moon would be so clouded
Without you I can be anyone
Anyone at all but myself
Oh but myself
Wish I was a slow moving sea
Wish I was a slow moving sea
Love is like a slow moving sea
Keeping in touch with eternity
Wish I was a slow, slow, slow, slow moving sea
Love is like a slow moving sea
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Alankar(Decor) -69
Their Race Yet Not Over(Kyrielle Poem)
a narrative, it tells a story.
stanzaic, in quatrains.
syllabic, each line is 8 syllables. in iambic tetrameter.
written with a refrain in the 4th line of the quatrain.
rhyme scheme may vary. Quatrain options abaB, cbcB, dbdB
Their race yet not over with that
Else way tortoise as thought to race
To run, to swim in halves, to work-
Agreed the hare willing to race
Starting speeded with hare on land
Plodding slowed with tortoise to race
To help the river came on hand
Swam fast tortoise won first the race
Knowing not to swim the hare lost
Foolish was his challenge to race
Judging oneself the best way last
Is the way best to win the race
poem by Indira Renganathan
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A Nocturne
The Moon has gone to her rest,
A full hour ago.
The Pleiads have found a nest
In the waves below.
Slow, the Hours one by one
In Midnight's footsteps creep.
Lovers who lie alone
Soon wake to weep.
Slow--footed tortoise Hours, will ye not hasten on,
Till from his prison
In the golden East
A new day shall have risen,
And the last stars be gone,
Like guests belated from a bridal feast?
When the long night is done
Then shall ye sleep.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Hazey Jane
Do you curse where you come from,
Do you swear in the night
Will it mean much to you
If I treat you right.
Do you like what you're doing,
Would you do it some more
Or will you stop once and wonder
What you're doing it for.
Hey slow Jane, make sense
Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence.
Do you feel like a remnant
Of something that's past
Do you find things are moving
Just a little too fast.
Do you hope to find new ways
Of quenching your thirst,
Do you hope to find new ways
Of doing better than your worst.
Hey slow Jane, let me prove
Slow, slow Jane, we're on the move.
Do it for you,
Sure that you would do the same for me one day.
So try to be true,
Even if it's only in your hazey way.
Can you tell if you're moving
With no mirror to see,
If you're just riding a new man
Looks a little like me.
Is it all so confusing,
Is it hard to believe
When the winter is coming
Can you sign up and leave.
Hey slow Jane, live your lie
Slow, slow jane, fly on by.
song performed by by Nick Drake
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Alankar (Decor) -33
Mindset(Short Rondel)
It's my mindset to keep going
Like the tortoise won the racing
Being slow and steady throughout
Though slow I go steady devout
Running firm towards my target
It's my mindset
I'm proud never to lose my game
Unlike the hare that slept with shame
But to win focussed at my goal
To give my best of poetic role..
It's my mindset
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Plaster of Paris
My beloved bought a plaster of Paris mold
A couple of tortoises saying 'Welcome',
From a Dollar shop
And we hanged that at the entrance of our Halcyon cottage.
At midnight my wife was fast asleep with a smile and I am sure that she dreams the Heaven,
But I am still awake with the nightcap.
I heard the tortoise's whisper
And the dialect is very familiar to me from my early births it seems.
'The old couple is very quiet like us and their offspring must have living abroad.
They too very slow and steady,
But the Man seems to be an alcoholic.
I sniffed while he was hanging us on the wall.
We must pray day & night for their welfare otherwise they could have bring a watchdog by throwing us to the nearby pond.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Hazey Jane I
Do you curse where you come from,
Do you swear in the night
Will it mean much to you
If I treat you right.
Do you like what youre doing,
Would you do it some more
Or will you stop once and wonder
What youre doing it for.
Hey slow jane, make sense
Slow, slow, jane, cross the fence.
Do you feel like a remnant
Of something thats past
Do you find things are moving
Just a little too fast.
Do you hope to find new ways
Of quenching your thirst,
Do you hope to find new ways
Of doing better than your worst.
Hey slow jane, let me prove
Slow, slow jane, were on the move.
Do it for you,
Sure that you would do the same for me one day.
So try to be true,
Even if its only in your hazey way.
Can you tell if youre moving
With no mirror to see,
If youre just riding a new man
Looks a little like me.
Is it all so confusing,
Is it hard to believe
When the winter is coming
Can you sign up and leave.
Hey slow jane, live your lie
Slow, slow jane, fly on by.
song performed by by Nick Drake
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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