Symbiosis

by David Constantine

Climbers without a leg-up in infancy
Would be crawlers life-long, getting nowhere and thinking
This is not what I’m here for. Mostly and best it’s a tree

That willingly or not, pleased or affronted, plays host. Once got going
Nothing much will halt a climber. Lightning perhaps
Or a chain-saw clearance but even in a fair-to-middling season

Symbiosis clicks. Nothing so very much wrong with this
Says the tree. I’d be nothing and nowhere without you, says the climber.
Deep down everyone wants to be loved, wants to be useful

And come spring, come summer and autumn, you may see a biped
A solitary promeneur stopped in his tracks by the fact
Of a fruiting wild apple tree climbed to the crown by roses

By deep-red roses, a weaving into the dark and out again
Into sunlight, into the sparkling aftermath of heavy rain. Yes , says the apple
To this new pal, the rose, they’re almost likeable, that sort at least,

When we enter through their eyes and for a while they suspend
Their normal thinking (so stunted, so frightened, so without much hope)
And gaze upon you and me. Yes, says the deep red rose amicably

To her helpmeet and his light green apples swelling in dark foliage,
They’ll do for once. They have lifted up their eyes to what is fit to be looked at:
Us, that is, me and you, sewn together with living beauty.