The Tree of Idlenessby Lawrence DurrellI shall die one day I supposeIn this old Turkish house I inhabit:A ragged banana-leaf outside and hereOn the sill in a jam-jar a rock-rose.Perhaps a single pining mandolinThrobs where cicadas have quarriedTo the heart of all misgiving and thereScratches on silence like a pet locked in.Will I be more or less deadThan the village in memory's dispersingSprings, or in some cloud of witness see,Looking back, the selfsame road ahead?By the moist clay of a woman's wanting,After the heart has stopped its fearfulGnawing, will I descry betweenThis life and that another sort of haunting?No: the card-players in tabs of shadeWill play on: the aerial springsHiss: in bed lying quiet under kissesWithout signature, with all my debts unpaidI shall recall nights of squinting rain,Like pig-iron on the hills: bruisedLandscapes of drumming cloud and everywhereThe lack of someone spreading like a stain.Or where brown fingers in the darkness move,Before the early shepherds have awoken,Tap out on sleeping lips with these sameWorn typewriter keys a poem imploringSilence of lips and minds which have not spoken.
1955/1955
Author's Note
The title of this poem is taken from the name of the tree which stands outside Bellapaix Abbey in Cyprus, and which confers the gift of pure idleness on all who sit under it.
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