Electra Movie Camera image by Joe Haput CC BY-SA
One True Tree: Cantos I-IV
by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole
I
A nation there was of rabbits and hares,
A storybook land, neither here nor there,
But far from us, a mysterious coast,
Which cold winters freeze, and warm summers roast.
In burrows they lived, built snug castles too,
Fine cities, a harbour, where proudly flew
Their tri-footed flag, of old Ballyntine,
Where, three hundred years, calm peace made to shine
His smile-beaming face, and prosperous trade
Had many a fortune for rabbits made.
But now a darkness, with low-leggèd creep,
Into the public and private heart seeps;
The royal house falters, common hares mourn,
Into what discord their kittens are born;
And one single cry through every breast burns,
Where, for a saviour, can Ballyntine turn?
II
On a ship, in the sea, where icebergs flow,
A bleak northern realm the hardy hares know,
There stood a rabbit, alone on the deck,
A crate-hauling sloop, and scrounger of wrecks.
In fur is he muffled, tears are they froze
Onto the tip of his fine-whiskered nose,
Some burden him bothers, scars of a time
When he was the butt of house-burning crime,
But now he is stronger, unbent and hale,
Ready to conquer and buttressed heights scale.
A passage to Raleston is what he takes,
Seat of the empire, his life to remake:
Some new profession, or calling to serve,
Which will encompass his courage and verve.
Then a disturbance makes angry the waves,
And he once more must his mottled hide save.
III
A kraken there lurked, immersed in the deeps,
A steady patrol he unsleeping keeps,
And fastens on ships, whose people a feast
Provide for this beaked, hook-tentacled beast.
His arms wrap the hull, they squeeze and they crush;
The once-cheerful crew is beaten and hushed,
Deserting their posts, they seek to escape;
Off gunwale and deck the kraken them scrapes,
And inches them screaming towards his beak,
Which clicking and clacking, nourishment seeks.
Of all sea-wise hares who shipped on that sloop,
When fear filled their hearts, but one did not droop:
The brooding young buck, by danger undazed
Now springs to counter this octopus crazed,
His sword is unsheathed, his paw lifts it high;
He vows this snatcher of sailors must die.
IV
The fight it was joined, for good or for ill,
Each combatant would his foe strain to kill.
One tentacle cocked, the hare does he hack,
But another coil throws him on his back,
And around him wrapped, proceeds him to drag,
Off the frost-blained boat, which begins to sag
Beset stern to prow with colliding ice,
Those pounding bergs, which tighten in a vise,
And grind the groaning boards, them to explode,
And sink that ship, which long had safely rode
On the troubled sea, with a cargo fast,
But now, without help, has floated its last.
All are tilted out, into waters splash,
As the broken beams on their bodies crash.
Only one does live, that rabbit who fights
The shrill-squeaking squid, with the beak that bites.