World Poetry Day - March 21

                            Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith 
                                   September 20, 1902 – March  7, 1971



                               Alone in the Woods by Stevie Smith

                              Alone in the woods I felt
                              The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees
                              Nature has taught her creatures to hate
                              Man that fusses and fumes
                              Unquiet man
                              As the sap rises in the trees
                              As the sap paints the trees a violent green
                              So rises the wrath of Nature's creatures
                              At man
                              So paints the face of Nature a violent green.
                              Nature is sick at man
                              Sick at his fuss and fume
                              Sick at his agonies
                              Sick at his gaudy mind
                              That drives his body
                              Ever more quickly
                              More and more
                              In the wrong direction.


                              
--Cat