Fallen Blossom Returning
To the Branch? A Butterfly²
Timid Millipedes venture a Tango³
With Spiders I have Friendship made,
And Watch’d them in their Sullen Trade⁴
The Crickets Beat their Tambours in the Wind⁵
The Bee that hummeth lowest shall Transcend you⁶
The Gnat’s Supremacy is Large as thine⁷
We dispense Starlight to casual Moths⁸
Thou and the Worm are Brother-Kind,
As Lowly, as Earthly, and as Blind⁹
Am I not a Fly like thee? Or
Art Thou not a Man like me¹⁰
¹ Mary Ward Brown, The Cure
² Arakida Moritake tr. David LaSpina, Fallen Blossom
³ Denise Levertov, August Daybreak
⁴ Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
⁵ Wallace Stevens, The Comedian as the Letter C
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Drama of Exile
⁷ Emily Dickinson, A Toad
⁸ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
⁹ George Sewell, The Dying Man in His Garden
¹⁰ William Blake, The Fly