What do I care for Morning
What do ic are for morning,
For a shivering aspen tree,
For sunflowers and sumac
Opening greedily?
What do I care for morning,
For the glare of the rising sun,
For a sparrows noisy prating,
For another begun?
Give me the beauty of evening,
The cool consummation of night,
And the moon like a love-sick lady,
Listless and wan and white.
Give me a little valley,
Huddled beside a hill,
Like a monk in a moastery,
Safe and contented and still.
Give me the white road glistening,
A strand of pale moon's hair,
And the tall hemlocks towering,
Dark as the moon is fair.
Oh what do I care for the mornin,
Naked and newly born--
Night is here, yielding and tender--
What do I care for dawn! |
Trees at Night
Slim sentinels
Stretching lacy arms
About slumbrous moon;
Black quivering
Silouhettes,
Tremulous,
Stencilled on the petal
Of a bluebell;
Ink sputterd
On a robin's breast;
Te jagged rent
Of mountains
Reflected in a
Stilly Sleeping lake;
Freagile pinnacles
Of fairy castles;
Torn webs of shadows;
And printed 'gainst the sky--
The trembling beauty
Of an urgent pine. |
Summer Matures
Summer matures. Brilliant Scorpion
Appears. The Pelican's thick pouch
Hangs heavily with perch and slugs.
The brilliant-bellied mewt flashes
Its crimson crest in the white water.
In the lush meadow, by the river,
The yellow-freckled toad laughs
With a toothless gurgle at the white-necked stork
Standing asleep on one red reedy leg.
And here Pan dreams of slim stalks clean for piping,
And of a nightingale gone mad with freedom.
Come. I shall weave a bed of reeds
And willow limbs and pale nightflowers.
I shall strip the roses of their petals,
And the white down from the swan's neck.
Come. Night is here. The air is drunk With wild grape and sweet clover.
And by the sacred fount of Aganippe,
Euterpe sings of love. Ah, the woodland creatures,
The doves in pairs, the wild sow and her shoats,
The stag searching the forest for a mate,
Know more of love than you, my callous Phaon.
The young moon is curved white scimitar
Pierced thru the swooning night.
Sweet Phaon. With Sappho, sleep like stars at dawn.
This night was born for love, my Phaon.
Come. |
Invocation
Let me be buried in the rain
In a deep, dripping wood,
Under the warm wet breast of Earth
Where once a gnarled tree stood.
And paint a picture on my tomb
With dirt and piece of bough
Of a girl and a boy beneath a round pipe moon
Eating of love with an eager spoon
And vowing an eager vow.
And do not keep my plot mowed smotth
And clean as a spinster's bed,
But let the weed, the flower, the tree,
Riotous, rampant, wild, and free,
Grow high above my head. |
Magalu
Summer comes.
The ziczac hovers
'Round the greedy-mouthed crocodile.
A vulture bears away a foolish jackal.
The flamingo is a dash of pink
Against dark green mangroves,
Her slender legs rivalling her slim neck.
The laughing lake gurgles delicious music in its throat
And lulls to sleep the lazy lizard,
A nebulous being on a sun-scorched rock.
In such a place,
In this pulsing, riotous gasp of color,
I met Magalu, dark as a tree at night,
Eager-lipped, listening to a man with a white collar
And a small black book with a cross on it.
Oh Magalu, come! Take my hand and I will read you poetry,
Chromatic words,
Seraphic symphonies,
Fill up your throat with laughter and your heart with song.
Do not let him lure you from your laughing waters,
Lulling lakes, lissome winds.
Would you sell the colors of your sunset and the fragrance
Of your flowers, and the passionate wonder of your forest
For a creed that will not let you dance? |
