Indifference

Thom Gunn Selected Poems 1950-1975 concludes with a poem chosen from Jack Straw's Castle called "The Cherry Tree" which after description of the fecund abundance of the fruit-bearing tree moves to a description of its self-possession. The babies, i.e. cherries, have fattened. The gendered tree is not preoccupied with their fate.

Now she can repose a bit
they are so fat.
                    She cares less
birds get them, men
pick them, human children wear them
in pairs over their ears
she loses them all.
That's why she made them,
to lose them into the world, she
returns to herself,
she rests, she doesn't care.

She leans into the wind
her trunk shines black
with rain, she sleeps
as black and hard as lava.
She knows nothing about babies.

I think the strength of the image derives from the gendering and from the appeal to hardened lava: there is in the picture of this "return" something elemental. It places the reader in an interesting position: what are we to know of her unknowing? What are we to do with this knowledge? Turn too to forgetfulness... grow hard, shining in the rain. Can we cultivate such indifference? Find rest?

And so for day 1084
01.12.2009