Trying to impose one structure of feeling
That life is a show no lateral should be stealing,
But all play their parts in feeding the shoots?
Though a bad piece of planting won’t leave the root feeling
That existence is good, and the more of it the better,
If we cherished each life for its uniqueness, repealing
The self-justifying price-tag and standard criteria,
We’d replace the nurseryman with a nature lover
Who limes the holes, since we’d all be poorer
Minus the rose-bush whose potential was fettered.
If we care for the bush, we’ll care for the roots.
Each lateral fits somewhere into the background of a life,
Each strand of the life-force. Moderation, that suits
Survival, wisdom and keeping a wife,
Is the taproot’s function: it flows with goodwill
And reverence for life - if the soil is not ill
With the warlike canker in taproots so rife.
2. DIGNITY
(the latericumbent)
'In his private heart no man much respects himself.' - Mark Twain
'Gloire de L'Homme' has a well-proportioned root,
Each lateral like a mainspring, an atavistic impetus
That makes us tick. All converge at the taproot