A Twig Alighted
A twig alighted on a fence and dozed;
So do I sleep.
The fruit fell and what have I to do with my trunk,
What with my branch?
The fruit fell, the flower is already forgotten,
The leaves survive.
One day the storm will rage, they will drop.
To the ground, dead.
Afterwards, the nights of dread go on,
No rest or sleep for me,
Alone I thrash about in the dark, smashing
My head against my wall.
And again spring blossoms,
And alone I hang from my trunk
A bare shoot, without bud or flower,
Without fruit or leaf.
poem by Hayyim Nahman Bialik
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A Long Bough
A bough sank down on a fence, and fell asleep –
so shall I sleep.
The fruit has fallen; and what do I care
for my root and stock?
The fruit has fallen, the flower is long forgotten,
only leaves remain.
One day a storm will rage and they will fall,
casualties, to earth.
Afterwards, terrible nights.
No respite, no sleep.
I wrestle alone in darkness, batter
my head on the wall.
Spring will blossom again. Only I
hang on to my stem –
bald shoot with no bud and no flower
no fruit and no leaf.
poem by Hayyim Nahman Bialik
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A Dead Leaf
between these two shores
i float like a dead leaf
am not dead either..
if i was i will not feel the pain
budded flowered and became a fruit
on one shore
eaten and as a bare stray seed laid
at the other shore
as a seed i did germinate
the mother root grew into a tree
an off spring flower and fruit came by
all along as a seed i thought i was the tree itself
I NEVER THOUGHT I WILL LOOSE
MY IDENTITY AS A SEED
CAN A TREE SHOW ITS SEED
EVEN IF IT WANTS TO
ALL ALONG...
I thought i was the tree itself
may be i was a part of each part
the stem to hold, the leaf to nourish
till fate wind blew me down as a dead leaf
today as a dead leaf i float
wanting a living from one shore
wanting relationship from the other
as a dead leaf i float..am not dead with pain
ALL ALONG....
I DID THINK I WAS THE TREE ITSELF
BEING JUST A SEED
poem by Samanyan Lakshminarayanan
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The Sour Lemon Tree
A sour lemon tree flower attracts the bee
While its fruit is bitter not so its flower
White is its flower sweet and very pretty
Only the fruit is bitter and that's just a pity
As the beauty of its flower resist not a bee
It's the simple truth
Or see the sour lemon tree
With fruit that is bitter bears a lemon tree
But useful is its fruit good for everyday use
Once said a bee... your flower is very sweet
It carries fragrance scented out in the street
Yet bears you fruit bitter no one wants to eat
It's partly the truth
Or see the sour lemon tree
A citrus tree with fruit no other tree bears
Then out of the tree came a nice neat voice
'Twas like a voice of one who's very wise
This is what it said trees are not so free
One made a decree for every bearing tree
It's partly the truth
Or see the sour lemon tree
The Creator decides the fruit a tree bears
Whether it be bitter or whether it be sweet
The Creator decrees for every bearing tree
To bring forth fruit ordained for it to bear
Then sweet or bitter bears a tree its fruit
It's the simple truth
Or see the sour lemon tree.
poem by Clarence Prince
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Backdrifts
We're rotten fruit
We're damaged goods
What the hell we've got nothing more to lose
One burst and we will probably crumble
We're backdrifting
This far but no further
I'm hanging off a branch
I'm teetering on a breaker
Honey sweets so fall asleep
I'm backsliding
You fell into our arms
You fell into our arms
We tried but there was nothing we could do
Nothing we could do
All evidence has been buried
All tapes have been erased
But your footsteps give you away
So you're backtracking
Oh oh oh
You fell into our arms
You fell into our arms
We tried but there was nothing we could do
Nothing we could do
You fell into our
You fell into a
We're rotten fruit
We're damaged goods
What the hell we've got nothing more to lose
One burst and we will probably crumble
We're backdrifters
song performed by by Radiohead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life, Love and Friendship
Life is a tree
Friendship is flower
Love is fruit
You can smell the flower
But you can taste the fruit
A Dream Of Evolution....
shall a seed be
a seed forever?
do you not dream
someday that it shall
be planted
so that it can sprout
and grow
and then finally see
its flower
and fruit?
must the flower and fruit
be just the same
like the rest of the histories of
the other seeds
of their own form and kind?
must i hope
for an evolution
a seed turning
into a bee
a bee into
a butterfly into wind
into star?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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With The Quandongs
IF you happen to visit the Western Plains
When the summer is young and green,
You can see the green of the quandong leaves
With the quandong fruit between.
The fruit is the size of a plum, perhaps,
And red as your own blood's hue;
And it falls to the ground at the touch of the wind
Like a drop of crimson dew.
The wide plains lie with half-shut eyes
At peace in a golden swoon,
And the lizards drink their full of rest
Abask in the drowsy noon.
There is only the whir of a wing, perchance,
To startle the sleeping lands;
But the quandong trees, all green and red,
Are a-twinkle with little hands.
Oh, many a tress has turned to grey,
And many a song grown mute
Since Rita and Meg and Trixie and I
Went gathering quandong fruit.
And there we were on the plains alone
In the hush of a drowsy air —
Rita and Meg with roguish eyes
And Trixie with wayward hair.
A far mirage of mingled sun and dream
Was born of the noontide sleep,
And the rifled fruit of the quandongs lay
At our feet in a ruddy heap.
I know that the quandong's burning fruit
Still reddens the drowsy air;
That Trixie is grown and sometime wed,
And Rita is grave and fair.
I know that Meg of the roguish eyes,
Though ten long years be sped,
Still plucks the fruit of the quandong trees
When the quandong fruit is red.
I know — and I know to my loss, alas! —
That I stand where the winds blow cold,
And search, with others, another tree
For its scanty fruit of gold.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Leaves Compared with Flowers
A tree's leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bar, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.
But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.
Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.
I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.
Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.
poem by Robert Frost
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Summer Of The Unlocked Door
It is raised up from the dust this earth of the silver maker,
her for me it was higher than the arm could and yet
infused as the rose I scented, starry nights stretch out.
O dresses flowing silver, towards me, therein you reach
and it faces to each of us.
There is the petaled flower of which,
and you open freely as the sun without obstacle.
May the white leaf, the flower did not run off nor divide the silver
from that kind of rare silver; O it is white, it does become you,
your cluster, thickly with the veined branch,
summer of the unlocked door
and it has the fruit which it matures, do.
poem by Is It Poetry
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Photosynthesis
a light
traveler tired
rests upon
the smooth spot of
leaves,
there is something that
is eaten
but always not consumed
leaves grow more leaves
fruit upon fruit
are the hours
upon a tray of days
light leaves
the world lets darkness
sleep upon
its satisfied
bosom
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The leaf becomes flower when it loves. The flower becomes fruit when it worships.
aphorism by Rabindranath Tagore from Stray Birds (1916), translated by Rabindranath Tagore
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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An Allure Fruits
bats are back
their fruit trees in fruit
forgotten fruit not
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Foresight
That is work of waste and ruin--
Do as Charles and I are doing!
Strawberry-blossoms, one and all,
We must spare them--here are many:
Look at it--the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any:
Do not touch it! summers two
I am older, Anne, than you.
Pull the primrose, sister Anne!
Pull as many as you can.
--Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower:
Of the lofty daffodil
Make your bed, or make your bower;
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom;
Only spare the strawberry-blossom!
Primroses, the Spring may love them--
Summer knows but little of them:
Violets, a barren kind,
Withered on the ground must lie;
Daisies leave no fruit behind
When the pretty flowerets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As many will be blowing here.
God has given a kindlier power
To the favoured strawberry-flower.
Hither soon as spring is fled
You and Charles and I will walk;
Lurking berries, ripe and red,
Then will hang on every stalk,
Each within its leafy bower;
And for that promise spare the flower!
poem by William Wordsworth
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The Creation of the Moon
The man cut his throat and left his head there.
The others went to get it.
When they got there they put the head in a sack.
Farther on the head fell out onto the ground.
They put the head back in the sack.
Farther on the head fell out again.
Around the first sack they put a second one that
was thicker.
But the head fell out just the same.
It should be explained that they were taking the head
to show to the others.
They did not put the head back in the sack.
They left it in the middle of the road.
They went away.
They crossed the river.
But the head followed them.
They climbed up a tree full of fruit
to see whether it would go past.
The head stopped at the foot of the tree
and asked them for some fruit.
So the men shook the tree.
The head went to get the fruit.
Then it asked for some more.
So the men shook the tree
so that the fruit fell into the water.
The head said it couldn't get the fruit from there.
So the men threw the fruit a long way
to make the head go a long way to get it so they could go.
While the head was getting the fruit
the men got down from the tree and went on.
The head came back and looked at the tree
and didn't see anybody
so went on rolling down the road.
The men had stopped to wait
to see whether the head would follow them.
They saw the head come rolling.
They ran.
They got to their hut they told the others that the head
was rolling after them and to shut the door.
All the huts were closed tight.
When it got there the head commanded them to open the doors.
The owners would not open them because they were afraid.
So the head started to think what it would turn into.
If it turned into water they would drink it.
If it turned into earth they would walk on it.
If it turned into a house they would live in it.
If it turned into a steer they would kill it and eat it.
If it turned into a cow they would milk it.
If it turned into a bean they would cook it.
If it turned into the sun
When men were cold it would heat them.
If it turned into rain the grass would grow and the
animals would crop it.
So it thought, and it said, "I will turn into the moon."
It called, "Open the doors, I want to get my things."
They would not open them.
The head cried. It called out, "At least give me
my two balls of twine."
They threw out the two balls of twine through a hole.
It took them and threw them into the sky.
It asked them to throw it a little stick too
to roll the thread around so it could climb up.
Then it said, "I can climb, I am going to the sky."
It started to climb.
The men opened the doors right away.
The head went on climbing.
The men shouted, "You going to the sky, head?"
It didn't answer.
As soon as it got to the Sun
it turned into the Moon.
Toward evening the Moon was white, it was beautiful.
And the men were surprised
to see that the head had turned into the Moon.
Russell Kincaid
In the last spring I ever knew,
In those last days,
I sat in the forsaken orchard
Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered
The hills at Miller's Ford;
Just to muse on the apple tree
With its ruined trunk and blasted branches,
And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms
Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle,
Never to grow in fruit.
And there was I with my spirit girded
By the flesh half dead, the senses numb
Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth, --
Such phantom blossoms palely shining
Over the lifeless boughs of Time.
O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us!
Had I been only a tree to shiver
With dreams of spring and a leafy youth,
Then I had fallen in the cyclone
Which swept me out of the soul's suspense
Where it's neither earth nor heaven.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter XIX: Fruits
grow the fruit till it's big enough
grow the fruit till the color turns red
grow the fruit till it smells good
grow the fruit to be cooked
don't be tricked of what is edible
a beautiful fruit can be sour
a big fruit can be raw
a delicious fruit can be poison
a cooked fruit can be forbidden
be careful of what is edible
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Arbor Amoris
I have a tree, a graft of Love,
That in my heart has taken root;
Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
So greatly hath its shadow spread,
That underneath all joy is dead,
And all my pleasant days are flown,
Nor can I slay it, nor instead
Plant any tree, save this alone.
Ah, yet, for long and long enough
My tears were rain about its root,
And though the fruit be harsh thereof,
I scarcely looked for better fruit
Than this, that carefully I put
In garner, for the bitter bread
Whereon my weary life is fed:
Ah, better were the soil unsown
That bears such growths; but Love instead
Will plant no tree, but this alone.
Ah, would that this new spring, whereof
The leaves and flowers flush into shoot,
I might have succour and aid of Love,
To prune these branches at the root,
That long have borne such bitter fruit,
And graft a new bough, comforted
With happy blossoms white and red;
So pleasure should for pain atone,
Nor Love slay this tree, nor instead
Plant any tree, but this alone.
L'ENVOY.
Princess, by whom my hope is fed,
My heart thee prays in lowlihead
To prune the ill boughs overgrown,
Nor slay Love's tree, nor plant instead
Another tree, save this alone.
poem by François Villon
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A Distant Spring
I who love the Spring so well
Shall be sleeping, some glad day,
When her hosts come back to dwell
In their old, familiar way.
I shall live, alas! no more
In some distant April hour,
When the Spring finds wide her door,
Calling leaf, and bloom, and flower.
I shall sleep--but I shall dream
In my home beneath the ground,
And my slumbering heart shall teem
With its visions deep, profound.
I shall know, ere you will guess
(Though with life I have no part),
What new golden loveliness
Stirs within the old earth's heart.
I shall hear the first soft sound
When the Spring is born anew,
And rejoice, beneath the ground,
At the bliss to come to you.
And the dreams that I shall dream,
In that Spring when I am dead,
May arise until they seem
Blossoms white and blossoms red!
poem by Charles Hanson Towne
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The Moon Shines In My Body
The moon shines in my body,
but my blind eyes cannot see it:
The moon is within me,
and so is the sun.
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me;
but my deaf ears cannot hear it.
So long as man clamours for the 'I' and the 'Mine',
his works are as naught:
When all love of the 'I' and the 'Mine' is dead,
then the work of the Lord is done.
For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
When that comes, then work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit:
when the fruit comes, the flower withers.
The musk is in the deer,
but it seeks it not within itself:
it wanders in quest of grass.
There's A Moon Inside My Body
THE moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it:
The moon is within me, and so is the sun.
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it.
So long as man clamours for the I and the Mine, his works are as naught:
When all love of the I and the Mine is dead, then the work of the Lord is done.
For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
When that comes, then work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower withers.
The musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself: it wanders in quest of grass.