QUOTE : I Am Vertical<br /><br />But I would rather be horizontal.<br />I am not a tree with my root in the soil<br />Sucking up minerals and motherly love<br />So that each March I may gleam into leaf,<br />Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed<br />Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,<br />Unknowing I must soon unpetal.<br />Compared with me, a tree is immortal<br />And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,<br />And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.<br /><br />Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,<br />The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.<br />I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.<br />Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping<br />I must most perfectly resemble them--<br />Thoughts gone dim.<br />It is more natural to me, lying down.<br />Then the sky and I are in open conversation,<br />And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:<br />The the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.<br /><br />"I Am Vertical", 28 March 1961