Poem by Edward Estlin Cummings

* * *

when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage -
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age

when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice
- and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close

when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn - valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude - and march
denounces april as a saboteur

then we'll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind (and not until)

1. if learned darkness from our searched world
2. O Thou to whom the musical white spring
3. when unto nights of autumn do complain
4. this is the garden:colours come and go
5. come nothing to my comparable soul

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