"Without a cry, without a prayer": Tennessee Williams' poem from "Night of the Iguana"

This poem, by Tennessee Williams, comes from his "Night of the Iguana," made into what I believe is the best movie adaptation of anything he wrote. (Yes, better than "Streetcar Named Desire" or "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" -- even them!) Take one weak and lustful scandal-chased minister of the gospel, mix in various women, a couple beach boys and an aging poet. Add a dash of despair-laced faith (or maybe faith-laced despair) and a hot Mexican night... a great story. The poem? It stands on its own.

How Calmly Does the Olive Branch (Nonno's Poem)

How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair

Some time while light obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever
And from thence
A second history will commence

A chronicle no longer gold
A bargaining with mist and mold
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth, and then

An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth's obscene corrupting love

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair

Oh courage! Could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?


[Apparently, the written version of this poem in the original play used an "Orange Branch" rather than the "Olive Branch" included in the movie version. Thus the poem in the play's title was "How Calmly Does the Orange Branch."]