Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TREE MEN CALLED BEAUTIFUL, by JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TREE MEN CALLED BEAUTIFUL, by                    
First Line: They distorted and twisted my life
Last Line: But I have grown free, as the gods intended trees to grow—and women.
Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Trees


THEY distorted and twisted my life,
My manners, my belief in what was right and wrong.
They said I must be shaped and moulded
In mind, and body, and manners,
According to the law that Confucius had made for women.
Until I was beautiful in mind and body.
And they took the tree that I loved,
The young tree that I called mine,
And bent its branches and twisted them,
And tied them down with cord.
That too must be beautiful, they said,
According to the law that worthy ancestors had made for trees.
It must be right, I thought;
Ancestors, many grandfathers back, had made the law.
I only hated, and was silent.
I smiled and did as I was told.
I was a woman.
Then one night the tree, in growing,
Burst the cords that had bound its top-most branch.
The gardener saw it in the morning.
"I must bind it with stronger cords," he said.
The tree was only a tree; it could not move or kill;
So the gardener bound it again.
And it grew with twisted branches, distorted, as the gardener willed.
And men called it beautiful.
But I had seen the beauty of that free branch
Against the morning sky,
It gave me strength and courage.
Now I am a free branch from a tree of ancient lineage,
One whose name is not mentioned in her father's household.
"She has defied the law that Confucius made for women," they say.
But I have grown free, as the Gods intended trees to grow—and women.





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