MISALLIANCE
Flanders and Swann

The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun,
And many other creepers do the same,
But some climb anticlockwise; the bindweed does, for one,
Or Convulvulus, to give its proper name.

Rooted on either side of the door, one of each species grew,
And raced towards the window ledge above.
Each one corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew,
Touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love.

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed,
“Oh! Let us get married if my parents don't mind. We’d
Be loving and inseparable, inexplicably entwined. We'd
Live happily ever after,” said the honeysuckle to the bindweed.

To the honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock.
The bindweed, they said, are inferior stock.
They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft.
We twine to the right while they twine to the left.

Said the anticlockwise bindweed, to the clockwise honeysuckle:
“We’d better start saving—many a mickle mak's a muckle—
Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll
Take a turn for the better,” said the bindweed to the honeysuckle,

A bee who was passing remarked to them then:
“I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Consider your offshoot, if offshoots there be.
They'll never receive any blessings from me.

Poor little sucker! How will it learn
When it's climbing which way to turn?
Right? Left? What a disgrace!
Or it may go straight upwards and fall flat on its face."

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bind-
Weed: “It seems that against us all fate has combined,
Oh, my darling, Oh, my darling, Oh, my darling Columbine,
Thou art lost and gone forever. We shall never be entwined."

Together they found them the very next day.
They had pulled up their root and just shriveled away.
Deprived of the freedom for which we must fight,
To veer to the left, or to veer to the right.

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