You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good eneough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
(Brian Patten (1946)
This anthology of poems is one of those gems bought in a charity shop several years ago. It introduced me to some poets I didn't know, including Brian Patten. There are times when he is so right you can't help the physical nod of your head in agreement, and wonder why you never thought it or understood it, or saw it that way before.
Virginia McKenna's comment on this poem has its own reflective wisdom:
"This poem brilliantly describes how complicated we all become, how convoluted our outlook on life. A frost-robed blade of grass must surely be one of the beauties of nature, but perhaps it takes an open and undemanding heart to recognise it."
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