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Seed Leaves
I
Here something stubborn comes,
Dislodging the earth crumbs
And making crusty rubble.
It comes up bending double
And looks like a green staple.
It could be seedling maple,
Or artichoke, or bean;
That remains to be seen.
Dislodging the earth crumbs
And making crusty rubble.
It comes up bending double
And looks like a green staple.
It could be seedling maple,
Or artichoke, or bean;
That remains to be seen.
II
Forced to make choice of ends,
The stalk in time unbends,
Shakes off the seedcase, heaves
Aloft, and spreads two leaves
Which still display no sure
And special signature.
Toothless and fat, they keep
The oval form of sleep.
The stalk in time unbends,
Shakes off the seedcase, heaves
Aloft, and spreads two leaves
Which still display no sure
And special signature.
Toothless and fat, they keep
The oval form of sleep.
III
This plant would like to grow
And yet be embryo;
Increase, and yet escape
The doom of taking shape;
Be vaguely vast, and climb
To the tip end of time
With all of space to fill,
Like boundless Yggdrasill
That has the stars for fruit.
But something at the root
More urgent than that urge
Bids two true leaves emerge,
And now the plant, resigned
To being self-defined
Before it can commerce
With the great universe,
Takes aim at all the sky
And starts to ramify.
Richard Wilbur
That first line makes me smile - of course it reminds me of "something wicked this way comes" from Macbeth, or Ray Bradbury. But, "Here something stubborn comes", I like that. I like how poems call back and forth to each other, sometimes on purpose and sometimes without intending to. When a poem reminds me of another one, or is written in response to another, I see the communication happening. Thoughts shared between people who have never met, often from different times and places and languages, this heartens me. Long may it continue! Let the layers of poetry accumulate like sediment, like types of soil - out of which more stubborn living things (and poems) may come.
And yet be embryo;
Increase, and yet escape
The doom of taking shape;
Be vaguely vast, and climb
To the tip end of time
With all of space to fill,
Like boundless Yggdrasill
That has the stars for fruit.
But something at the root
More urgent than that urge
Bids two true leaves emerge,
And now the plant, resigned
To being self-defined
Before it can commerce
With the great universe,
Takes aim at all the sky
And starts to ramify.
Richard Wilbur
That first line makes me smile - of course it reminds me of "something wicked this way comes" from Macbeth, or Ray Bradbury. But, "Here something stubborn comes", I like that. I like how poems call back and forth to each other, sometimes on purpose and sometimes without intending to. When a poem reminds me of another one, or is written in response to another, I see the communication happening. Thoughts shared between people who have never met, often from different times and places and languages, this heartens me. Long may it continue! Let the layers of poetry accumulate like sediment, like types of soil - out of which more stubborn living things (and poems) may come.
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