How Calmly Does the Olive Branch (Nonno’s Poem)
Tennessee Williams‘ poem from “Night of the Iguana“
How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair
Some time while light obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever
And from thence
A second history will commence
A chronicle no longer gold
A bargaining with mist and mold
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth, and then
An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene corrupting love
And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair
Oh courage! Could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?
beautiful
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Thanks Beth. 🙂
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Oh my, is that real? The color is so unique. Well captured, Maverick and love the poem 🙂
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Thanks Indah, I saw it stuck up in a tree, not real though. The original poem used orange instead of olive tree. 🙂
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