A Tree with a Bird in it: / A Symposium of Contemporary American Poets on Being Shown a Pear-tree on Which Sat a Grackle

Forslin murmurs a melodious impropriety

Musing on birds and women dead æons ago....

Was he not, once, this fowl, a gay bird in society?

Can any one tell?... After an evening out, who can know?

Perhaps Cleopatra, lush in her inadequate wrappings,

Lifted him once to her tatbebs.... Perhaps Helen of Troy

Found him more live than her Paris ... a bird among dead ones....

Perhaps Semiramis ... once ... in a pink unnamable joy * * *

I tie my shoes politely, a salute to this bird in his pear-tree;

... What is a pear-tree, after all.... What is a bird?

What is a shoe, or a Forslin, or even a Senlin?

What is ... a what?... Is there any one who has heard?...

What is it crawls from the kiss-thickened, Freudian darkness,

Amorous, catlike ... Ah, can it be a cat?

I would so much rather it had been a scarlet harlot,

There is so much more genuine poetry in that....

When one is young, you know, then one can sing

Of anything:

One is so young—so pleasurably so—

How can one know

If God made little apples, or yet pears,

Or ... if God cares?

You are young, maybe, Grackle; that is why

I want to cry

Seeing you watch the poems that I say

To-night, to-day ...

This little boy-bird seems to nod to me

With sympathy:

He is so young: it must be that is why ...

As young as I!

I will set my slim strong soul on this tree with no leaves upon it,

I will lift up my undressed dreams to the nude and ethical sky:

This bird has his feathers upon him: he shall not have even a sonnet:

Until he is stripped of his last pin-plume I will sing of my mate and I!

My ancestors rise from their graves to be shocked at my soul's wild climbing

(They were strong, they were righteous, my ancestors, but they always kept on their clothes)

My mate is the best of all mates alive: his voice is a raptured rhyming:

He chants "Come Down!" but it cannot come, either for him or those!

My ancestors pound from their ouija-board: my mate leaps in swift indignation:

I must tell the world of their wonders, but I must be strong and free—

Though all sires and all mates cry out in a runic incantation,

My soul shall be stripped and buttonless—it shall dwell in a naked tree!

Kenton's arrogant eyes watch the Widdemer pear-tree,

His thistle-down-footed sister puts out her tongue at him....

Kenton, what do you see? That yonder is only a bare tree;

Come, carry Deborah home; she is gossamer-light and slim.

"Aw, mother, but I don't want to!" Kenton replies with devotion,

"I've gathered you stones for the bird; come on, don't you want to throw 'em?"

Ah, Kenton, Kenton, my child, who but you would have such an emotion?

But in spite of it I admire you, as you'll see when you read this poem.

It was old Yale College

Made me what I am—

You oughto heard my mother

When I first said damn!

I put a pin in sister's chair,

She jumped sky-high ...

I don't know what'll happen

When I come to die!

But oh, the stars burst wild in a glorious crimson whangle,

There was foam on the beer mile-deep, mile-high, and the pickles were piled like seas,

Nœara's hair was a flapper's bob that turned to a ten-mile tangle,

And the forests were crowded with unicorns, and gold elephants charged up trees!

Forceps in the dentist's chair,

Razors in the lather ...

Lord, the black experience

I've had time to gather ...

But I've thought of one thing

That may pull me through—

I'm a reg'lar devil

But the Devil was, too!

There were thousands of trees with knotholed knees that kicked in a league-long rapture,

Birds green as a seasick emerald in a million-mile shrieking row—

It was sixty dollars or sixty days when the cop had made his capture....

But God! the bun was a gorgeous one, and the Faculty did not know!

I preen myself....

I ...

Always do ...

My ego expanding encompasses ...

Everything, naturally....

This bird preens himself ...

It is our only likeness....

Ah, God, I want a Ghetto

And a Freud and an alley and some Immigrants calling names ...

God, you know

How awful it is....

Here are trees and birds and clouds

And picturesquely neat children across the way on the grass

Not doing anything

Improper ...

(Poor little fools, I mustn't blame them for that

Perhaps they never

Knew How....)

But oh, God, take me to the nearest trolley line!

This is a country landscape—

I can't stand it!

God, take me away—

There is no Sex here

And no Smell!

O I have brought in now

Bergamot,

A packet o' brown senna

And an iron pot;

In my scarlet gown

I make all hot.

And other men and girls

Write like me

Setting herbs a-plenty

In their poetry

(Bergamot for hair-oil,

Bergamot for tea!)

And they may do ill now

Or they may do well,

(Little should I care now

What they have to sell—)

But what bergamot and rue are

None of them can tell.

All above my bitter tea

I have set a lid

(As my bitter heart

By its red gown hid)

They write of bergamot

Because I did....

(From its padded hangers

They've snatched my red gown,

Men as well as girls

And gone down town,

Flaunting my vocabulary,

Every verb and noun!)

And the grackle moans

High above the pot,

He is sick with herbs ...

And am I not,

Who have brought in

Bergamot?

Gosh, kid! that bird a-cheepin' in the tree

All green an' cocky—why, it might be me

Singin' to you.... Wisht I was just a bird

Bringin' you worms—aw, you know, things I've heard

'Bout me—an' flowers, maybe.... Like as not

Somebody'd get me with an old slingshot

An' I'd be dead.... Gee, it'd break you up!

Nothin' would be the same to you, I bet,

Knowin' my grave was out there in the wet

And we two couldn't pet no more.... Say, kid,

It makes me weep, same as it always did,

To think how bad you'd feel....

I got a thought,

An awful funny one I sorta caught—

Nobody never thought that way, I guess—

When I get blue, an' things is in a mess

I map out all my funeral, the hearses

An' nineteen carriages, an' folks with verses

Sayin' how great I was, an' all like that,

An' wreaths, an' girls with crapes around their hat

Tellin' the world how bad their hearts was broke,

An' you, just smashed to think I had to croak....

I can't stand that bird, somehow—makes me cry....

The world'll be darn sorry when I die!

There is no magic in a living tree,

And, if they be not sea-gulls, none in birds:

My soul is seasick, and its only words

Murmur desire for things more like a sea.

In this dry landscape here there seems to be

No water, merely persons in large herds,

Who, by their long remarks, their arid girds,

Come from the Poetry Society.

What could be drier, where all things are dry?

What boots this bird, this pear-tree spreading wide?

Oh, make this bird they all discuss to pie,

Hew down this tree and shape its planks to ships,

Send them to sea with these folk nailed inside,

That I may have great sonnets on my lips!

Never believe this bird connotes

Jade whorls of carven commonness:

Nor as from ordinary throats

Slides his sharp song in ice-strung stress.

He is the cold and scornful Loon,

Who, hoping that the sun shall fail,

Steeps in the silver of the moon

His burnished claws, his chiseled tail.

Beloved....

I cannot bear that Bird

He is green

With envy of My Songs:

"Cheep! Cheep!"

This Tree

Has a furtive look

And the Brook

Says, "Oh ... Splash...."

And the Grass ... the terrible Grass ...

It waves at me....

It is too flirtatious!

Beloved,

Let us leave swiftly ...

I fear this Landscape!

It would vamp me!

I sing of the joy of the Small Paths

The paths that lead nowhere at all,

(Though I never have gone on them nevertheless

They are admirable, and so small!)

I go out at midnight in motors

But, being a Roosevelt, I drive

Straight ahead on the neatly paved highway,

For I wish with much speed to arrive.

Oh, the joy and effulgence of Small Paths

Surrounded with Birds and with Trees

I would love to go down on a Small Path

And sit in communion with these!

Oh, Grackle, I yearn to be with you,

For poetic communion I yearn

But I have ten engagements to speak in the suburbs

And alas, I've no time to return.

Oh alas, the undone moments,

Oh, the myriad hours bereft

Trying to be twenty people

And to do things right and left.

I would sit down by a Small Path

And would make me a Large Rhyme

I should love to find my soul there

But I haven't got the time!

Grackle, Grackle on your tree,

There's something wrong to-day,

In the moonlight, in the quiet evening,

You will rise and croak and fly away;

Oh, you have sat and listened till you're wild for flight

(And that's all right)

But you have never criticised a single song

(And that's all wrong)

Lo, would you add despair unto despair?

Do you not care

That all these lesser children of the Muse

Shall sing to you exactly as they choose?

You are ungrateful, Fowl. I wrote a poem,

Once, in the middle of August, intending to show 'em

That you should not

Be shot:

What saw I then, what heard?

Multitudes—multitudes, under the tree they stirred,

And with too many a broken note and wheeze

They sang what each did please....

And Thou,

O bird of emeraldine beak and brow,

Thou sawest it all, and did not even cackle,

Grackle!

Bird, thou art not a Veery,

Nor yet a Yellowthroat,

Ne'erless, I knew thy gentle song,

Long, long e'er I could vote;

Thou art not a Blue Flower,

Nor e'en a real Blue Bird;

Yet there's a moral high and pure

In all thy likings heard:

"Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack—

Go on and ne'er look back!"

The noble tow'rs of Princeton

Hear high thy pensive trill,

And eke my ear has heard thee

The while I fished the rill;

Thy note rings out at daybreak

Before I rise to toil;

Thou counselest Persistence;

Thy song no stone can spoil;

"Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack—

Go on and ne'er look back!"

Yet, Bird, there is a limit

To all I've undergone;

From five o'clock till five o'clock

Thou'st chanted o'er my lawn;

I cannot get my work done ...

I give thee, Bird, advice;

If thou wouldst save thy skin alive,

Let me not warn thee twice,

"Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack—

Go on and ne'er look back!"

Pantings, Pantings, Pantings!

Gents' immanent furnishings!

On a mystic tide I ride, I ride,

Of the clothes of a million springs!

I take the train for the suburbs

Or I sweep from Pole to Pole,

But where is the window that holds them not,

Gents' furnishings of my soul!

Pantings, Pantings, Pantings!

Shirtings and coatings too!

How can I think of mere birds, nor blink

In the Cosmic Hullaballoo?

The hot world throbs with Immenseness,

The Voidness plunks in the Void,

And all of it doubtless has something to do

With Employer and Unemployed!

Pantings! Pantings! Pantings!

Trousers through all the town!

And the tailors' dummies with iron for tummies

Smirk in their blue and brown;

I float in a slithering simoon

Of fevered and surging tints,

And my ears are dulled with the mighty throb

Of the Male Best Dressers' Hints:

Pantings! Pantings! Pantings!

My wardrobe, they send it fleet....

Ah, the Is and the Was and the Never Does....

And the Cosmos at last complete!

Ho, Spring calls clear a message....

The Grackle is not green....

The Mighty Mother Nature

She knows just what I mean.

The lilac and the willow

The grass and violet

They are my wild companions

Where I was raised a pet.

The secrets of great nature

From childhood I have heard;

Oh, I can tell a wild flower

Swiftly from a wild bird;

And Gwendolen and Marna

And Myrtle (dead all three ...

Among my wildwood sweethearts

Was much mortality).

If they my loves returning

Might gather 'neath these boughs

(Oh, they would sniff at pear-trees

Who loved the Northern Sloughs).

Their wild eternal whisper

Would back me up, I ween:

"This bird is not a Grackle:

A Grackle is not green."

Oh, Hilda! see the little Bird!

If you will watch, upon my word

He will come out; a Veery 1 he

As like an Oboe as can be:

He shall be wingèd, with a tail,

Mayhap a Beak him shall not fail!

And I will tell him, "Birdie, oh,

This is my Hilda, you must know—

And oh, what joy, if you but knew—

She shall make poetry on you!"

Oh, my lovely Mother,

That is a Bird:

Sitting on a Tree.

I am a Little Girl

Standing on the Ground.

I see the Bird,

The Bird sees me.

Bird!

Color of Grass!

I love my Mother

More than I do You!

"Sure is it Pierrette yez are, Pierrette and no other?

(Och, Pierrette, me heart is broke that ye shud be that same—)

Pertendin' to be Frinch, an' me yer poor ould Irish mother

That named ye Bridget fer yer aunt, a dacent Dublin name!

Ye that was a pious girrl, decked out in ruffled collars,

With yer hair that docked an' frizzed—if Father Pat shud see!

Dancin' on a piece o' grass all puddle-holes an' hollers,

Amusin' these quare folk that's called a Pote-Society!"

But it was Bridget Sullivan,

Her locks flour-sprent,

That danced beneath the flowering tree

Leaping as she went.

"If there's folk to stare at ye ye'll dance for all creation

(Since ye went to settlements 'tis little else I've heard),

Letting yer good wages go to chat of 'inspiration,'

Flappin' up an' down an' makin' out yez are a burrd!

Sure if ye got cash fer it 'tis little I'd be sayin'

(Och, Pierrette, stenographin' 'tis better wage ye'll get,)

Sorra wan these long-haired folk has spoke till ye o' payin',

Talkin' of yer art, an' ye a leppin' in the wet!"

But it was Bridget Sullivan,

Her head down-bent,

Went back on the three-thirteen,

Coughing as she went.

Pierrette has gone—but it was not

Exactly that she lied;

She said she had to catch a train;

"I have a date," she cried.

To keep a sudden rendezvous

It came into her mind

As quite the quickest way to flee

From parties of this kind;

She went most softly and most soon,

But still she made a stir,

For, going, she took all the men

To town along with her.

How dear to me are home and wife,

The dear old Tree I used to Love,

The Pear it shed on starting life

And God's Outdoors so bright above!

For Virtue gets a high reward,

Noble is all good Scenery,

So I will root for Virtue hard,

For God, for Nature, and for Me!

Chris and Frank and I

Each had a column;

Chris and I were plump and gay,

But not so F.P.A.:

F.P.A. was solemn—

Not so his Column;

That was full of wit,

As good as My Column

Nearly every bit!

We sat on each an office chair

And all snapped our scissors;

Their things were pretty fair

But all of mine were Whizzers!

Frank wrote of Cyril,

An ungrammatic sinner,

But I wrote of Drink

And Chris wrote of Dinner;

And Frank kept getting thinner

And we kept getting plump—

Frank sat like a Bump

Translating from the Latin,

Chris wrote of Happy Homes

I wrote of Alcoholic Foams,

And we still seemed to fatten;

Frank wrote of Swell Parties where he had been,

I wrote of Whisky-sours, and Chris wrote of Gin!

But we both got fatter,

So the parties didn't matter,

Though F.P.A. he published each as soon as he'd been at her....

F.P.A. went calling

And sang about it sorely ...

"Pass around the shandygaff," says brave old Morley!

F.P.A. played tennis

And told the World he did....

I bought a stein of beer and tipped up the lid!

Frank wrote up all his evenings out till we began to cry,

But we drowned our envy in a long cool Rye!

And then we got an invitation, Frank and Chris and me,

To come and say a poem on a Grackle in a Tree:

But Chris and I'd had twenty ryes, and we began to cackle—

"Oh, see the ninety pretty birds, and every one a Grackle!

A Grackle with a Hackle,

A ticklish one to tackle

A tacklish one to tickle ... To ticker ... To licker...."

And we both began to giggle

And woggle, and wiggle,

And we giggled and we gurgled

And we gargled and were gay ...

For we'd had an invitation, just the same as F.P.A.!