#AmericanWriters
Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,
You are clear O rose, cut in rock, hard as the descent of hail. I could scrape the colour from the petals
Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,
NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop through this thick air—
I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream),
White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,
Crash on crash of the sea, straining to wreck men; sea—boards… raging against the world, furious, stay at last, for against your fur… and your mad fight,
From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,
Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone
Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf, more precious
Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…
Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us,
The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,
The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light