TORTOISE FAMILY CONNECTIONS
by: D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
- N he goes,
the little one,
- Bud of the universe,
- Pediment of life.
-
- Setting off somewhere, apparently.
- Whither away, brisk egg?
-
- His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more
than droppings,
- And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old
rusty tin.
-
- A mere obstacle,
- He veers round the slow great mound of her--
- Tortoises always foresee obstacles.
-
- It is no use my saying to him in an emotional voice:
- "This is your Mother, she laid you when you were an
egg."
-
- He does not even trouble to answer: "Woman, what have
I to do with thee?"
- He wearily looks the other way,
- And she even more wearily looks another way still,
- Each with the utmost apathy,
- Incognizant,
- Unaware,
- Nothing.
-
- As for papa,
- He snaps when I offer him his offspring,
- Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him,
- Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible tortoise
- Being touched with love, and devoid of fatherliness.
-
- Father and mother,
- And three little brothers,
- And all rambling aimless, like little perambulating pebbles
scattered in the garden,
- Not knowing each other from bits of earth or old tins.
-
- Except that papa and mama are old acquaintances, of course,
- But family feeling there is none, not even the beginnings.
-
- Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless
- Little tortoise.
-
- Row on then, small pebble,
- Over the clods of the autumn, wind-chilled sunshine,
- Young gayety.
-
- Does he look for a companion?
-
- No, no, don't think it.
- He doesn't know he is alone;
- Isolation is his birthright,
- This atom.
-
- To row forward, and reach himself tall on spiny toes,
- To travel, to burrow into a little loose earth, afraid of
the night,
- To crop a little substance,
- To move, and to be quite sure that he is moving:
- Basta!
-
- To be a tortoise!
- Think of it, in a garden of inert clods
- A brisk, brindled little tortoise, all to himself--
- Crsus!
-
- In a garden of pebbles and insects,
- Slow, and unquestioned,
- And inordinately there, O stoic!
- Wandering in the slow triumph of his own existence,
- Ringing the soundless bell of his presence in chaos,
- And biting the frail grass arrogantly,
- Decidedly arrogantly.
"Tortoise Family Connections"
is reprinted from Tortoises. D.H. Lawrence. New York:
Thomas Seltzer, 1921. |
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POEMS BY D.H. LAWRENCE |
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