William Blake’s poem “The Poison Tree” is, for those unfamiliar with the English Romantic poet’s work, eerily simplistic and stark. “I was angry with my friend,” the poet writes. “I told my wrath, my wrath did end.” However, being angry at a foe, the speaker in the poem remains silent, and in that silence his anger “doth grow” until it becomes a tree bearing a shining, tantalizing apple. His foe approaches it with a sense of recognition and seemingly helpless fascination, forgetting caution and trespassing barriers to steal into the garden and eat the apple. And, of course, through his greed, he is the loser in the transaction. The next morning, the narrator is “glad to see (his) foe outstretched beneath the tree.”
I find the images in this poem drifting into my mind and made me contemplate recent acts of terrorism. The Saudi border guards killed earlier this month, for example, bring up a complex sort of mourning; we are sorry for those who were killed, and for their families, and almost in the same moment we are braced for repercussions. So often it is the case that acts of violence breed other acts of violence. In fact, hasn’t it been so from the beginning? Just as we may trace human genealogy back to ancient roots, doesn’t the tendency toward and perpetration of violence have its own distinct line of succession?
We may be working against thousands of years of human history and culture when we suggest that more violence should be the very last reaction we should contemplate when faced with violence. Yet, isn’t that exactly what we need to do at this point? Haven’t we yet proven the futility of that perpetual cycle?
As someone who works with young students, I can tell you that I am heartened by every sign that I see that young people themselves have grown cynical and jaded about the cycle of violence and the extremist ideology that drives it. It is, after all, a sad tale that they have all seem played out in front of them too many times. I would, of course, be much more gratified to see these same young people come up with positive solutions and a determination to build bridges rather than burning them. Sometimes, I think I do see such initiative. Other times, I am despondent when I hear traces of the old litanies of war and vengeance, perpetuated in the young.
The “poison tree” in Blake’s poem would never have become so lethal and so attractive if the speaker had not “watered” it with his “tears” as well as his “fears.” By doing so, he is lending some of his own life energy to the poison tree, giving it an uncanny life and an ability to rob the enemy of his own. The tree is so closely associated with the speaker, who had no means of expressing his vitriol but through the manifestation of this living weapon. That is, after all, what makes it irresistible and sure to find its target.
This is precisely why we need to engage in open dialogue about perceived injustices. It may be simplistic to think that simply communicating one’s anger will melt it away, but it is, on the other hand, very likely and indeed very evident that anger and murderous intent grow underground, in places that are dark and hidden, once seeded by injury and resentment.
