“Flower in the Crannied Wall”

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower – but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

That’s a beautiful, philosophical poem, but I always see the minus as well as the plus of such poetry.

So heres my I.T. (irreverent take): what sort of poet would pluck a living plant right out by the roots and spout poetry and metaphysics at the poor dead thing? Thank goodness he didn’t think of writing a poem on little babies….I am sure that if he wanted to write a poem about a child, he would lop its head off before composing the words… ‘

Update: I also wanted to include the verse which is what I think Tennyson would probably write about a child:

Hello there child of two Innocently smiling…what I’ll do Is, sever your head, Hold you sadly when you’re dead Then write wonderful poetry about you

I hope these kind of poets die because some tiger wants to compose a poem on them!

The poem that the tiger might compose on the poet might go like this:

Oh man in the middle of my belly, I know I munched you to a jelly. But for my inspiration I needed your expiration So I saw you as meat in the deli.

Hah! Thanks, , for that nice first line of the first verse!