I like this rather sly poem about the difference between humans & other natural things. It was published in Dannie Abse’s collection, Tenants of the House in 1957, but is now unfortunately out of print. It has a nice touch of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells about it, not the fierce denunciation of John Stuart Mill
The first section has a swipe at roses, then:
Again
consider trees. Just try, Sir, just try to cut one down
in Fitzjohn’s Avenue at three o’clock
in the ordinary afternoon. You will be
prosecuted. Soon the Householders will arrange
themselves into a deranged mob. They’ll grow
Hitler moustaches, Mussolini chins. Frightful,
and write oathy letters to the Council,
naming you tree-criminal. Yet tell me, when
the bombs met their shadows in London,
amidst the ruin of voices, did one tree, just one
tree, write an angry note in its sly green ink?
Just imagine the reaction & demands for public apology from anyone who likened today’s tree huggers to fascists
After moving on to have a go at rivers in similar vein, he continues
And stars,
so indifferent& delinquent, stars which we have
decorated with glittering adjectives more numerous
than those bestowed on Helen’s eyes – do they
warn us when they fall? Not a hint.
Not a star-wink. They are even too lazy
To shine when we are most awake. Creatures
of the Night, they are probably up to amoral
purposes. You can’t trust a star, that’s sure
