After Reading Tennyson's Poem "Flower In The Crannied Wall"

[Dinkleberry2010]

I have just one question, Alfred:
Why did you pluck the flower? Why did you
pull it, root and all, from the crannied wall?

You might have simply observed the flower,
marked its vibrant blooming color;
you might have sniffed its fragrance,
brushed your fingers over its petals;
you might have simply wondered
that the flower was alive and growing
in a chinked rock wall.
Instead you plucked it, root and all,
and tried to analyze it.

What you did tells on you, Alfred; and in a way
it tells on all of Western civilization.

After you picked the flower and examined it
and tried to understand what it was,
tried to find an analogy between it and man and God,
I wonder what you did with the flower.

Did you carry it awhile as you walked alongside
the chinked rock wall, twirl the stem a time or two
between your fingers, then let the flower fall
unobtrusively to the ground? Did you take it
to your tower, place it in a thin-stemmed vase
and set it on your writing desk? Or did you present it
in a gruffly gentle way to your wife?

You don't tell.
Your poem ends with you standing by the crannied wall
holding the flower and lamenting
if you but could understand it
you should know what God and man is.

I wonder, Alfred, did you ever come to understand?
Did you ever come to realize
that in trying to understand the flower
you killed it?

Why did you pluck the flower, Alfred?
Why did you have to kill it
to create a poem about it?

[MGK]

i feel you could have found a better solution by writing a short essay on the theme, rather than a poem.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I don't

[Dinkleberry2010]

A minute speck in the verdant distance
gradually grows, capturing my attention.
I stretch my body upward, the better to see,
if it be enemy, mate, or prey coming toward me.
In this green diocese, purposeful movement
means one of three things: battle, mating, or nourishment.

Through the zigzag valley it shambles,
observing, recording, admiring the view,
halting now and then to examine
veins and canals on the trail it travels;
on down the long leaf-road it rambles
toward my altar.
And I now shift into my prayerful stance,
for I have recognized my favorite food.

I patiently wait in my devotional pose,
frozen in a seemingly beatific trance,
making no sound nor blinking an eye,
silent and motionless as a spider
watching a fly.

In its absorbed observation and admiration
of the miniature, the passive, the vegetative state,
my victim glides on--unsuspecting and unaware
of its fate.
It is my favorite victim, my favorite prey;
for of all the creatures in this flowering garden,
it is the most clever and calculating
and yet the most unwary.

Onward it comes
until it stands within my range,
then it notices me...
And in that split instant
before it dies,
it marvels,
seeing something that never
in its wildest nightmare
it could have imagined:
a praying tyrannosaur with bug eyes.
Then--
in that instant when
reality hits it right between the eyes
and it realizes the truth:
that nature is not pretty
nor peaceful nor noble nor wise,
nor does it exist in order for poets
to compose odes of praise to it--
Then
is when I strike,
in that microsecond
when it understands
that this is what it has come for--
not to observe, admire, or describe--
but to participate in communion;
to discover
the real secret life of plants;
to discover
that it is nothing more--or less--than nourishment;
to discover
that nature never lies;
to discover
that nature is one
big
hungry
feast--
one big communional meal...

Now the blessing
has been said,
grace over the meal,
now supper is served.
It's delicious...

Oh there are myriad creatures in this emerald diocese;
all colors and sizes and shapes, all with their own
movements and quirks and appetites and tastes;
but of all the creatures
in this green garden of life and death,
I like plant poets the best.

[Eryk]

D. T. Suzuki's analysis of the poem here from Lectures on Zen Buddhism.

[Dinkleberry2010]

wow--quite interesting--thank you

[dara.cv]

There is a valid necessity in reciting poetry, sometimes poems aren't read as they are intended to be heard. Perhaps the reason for the above comment.

I enjoy this poem, it is an angered rebuke of an ignorant act, initiated by ignorance. There may have been some purpose on Tennyson's part with that

[PrinceMyshkin]

Marvelous as it is, but I think the end would be more powerful without these lines:

Why did you pluck the flower, Alfred?
Why did you have to kill it
to create a poem about it?

the point has been well enough made in the three lines before this. Asking the question so overtly takes away from the power of the preceding three lines, but again, I admire everything that came before this.

[Dinkleberry2010]

Princey, you should know by now I have nothing to say to you