Song of the dicotyledon

 

 

The first tiny leaves

Of the dicotyledon

Still open for praise

In the Garden of Eden.

 

So simple in shape;

Their green is so true;

And the Sun is the Father

They seek in the blue.

 

Have you seen how they shed

The seed's heavy husk,

While the white root below

That dreads even dusk

 

Descends so the stem

Of the dicotyledon

Can open two leaves

In the sunshine of Eden?

 

Those twin oval leaves

Are halves of a whole,

Like the wide-open arms

Of a bared-open soul.

 

Glossy with sunshine,

Moistened by rain,

They swell with a joy

That they cannot contain.

 

Then a third leaf unfurls

From the dicotyledon,

And the first leaf for living

Here eastward of Eden,

 

In the pattern of all

Now born by the shoot,

To protect and nourish

The flower then fruit.

 

Have you seen a green melon

With broad leaves about

As they bask in the balm,

Brave the rainstorm and drought,

 

While yellowed and withered

Like remnants of Eden

Fall the first lowly leaves

Of the dicotyledon?

 

The hard frosts of autumn,

Fall's harvest complete;

Then the ice-storms of winter

And the lashing by sleet

 

Of the brown barren garden

Soon deep under snow;

But the seeds that we kept

In the springtime we sow,

 

And the first tiny leaves

Of the dicotyledon,

They open and praise

In the Garden of Eden.

 

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