(1948)
#AmericanWriters
The fruit rolled by all day. They prayed the cogs would creep; They thought about Saturday pay, And Sunday sleep. Whatever he smelled was good:
Indelicate is he who loathes The aspect of his fleshy clothes,… The flying fabric stitched on bone… The vesture of the skeleton, The garment neither fur nor hair,
I dream of journeys repeatedly: Of flying like a bat deep into a n… Of driving alone, without luggage,… The road lined with snow—laden sec… A fine dry snow ticking the windsh…
Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest.
By day the bat is cousin to the mo… He likes the attic of an aging hou… His fingers make a hat about his h… His pulse beat is so slow we think… He loops in crazy figures half the…
When I put her out, once, by the… She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a si… Or a wizened aster in late Septem… I brought her back in again
My secrets cry aloud. I have no need for tongue. My heart keeps open house, My doors are widely swung. An epic of the eyes
In a shoe box stuffed in an old ny… Sleeps the baby mouse I found in… Where he trembled and shook beneat… Till I caught him up by the tail… Cradled in my hand,
A cloud moved close. The bulk of… A tree swayed over water. A voice said: Stay. Stay by the slip—ooze. Stay… Dearest tree, I said, may I rest…
In purest song one plays the const… As changes shimmer in the inner ey… I stare and stare into a deepening… And tell myself my image cannot di… I love myself: that’s my one const…
Against the stone breakwater, Only an ominous lapping, While the wind whines overhead, Coming down from the mountain, Whistling between the arbors, the…
Where were the greenhouses going, Lunging into the lashing Wind driving water So far down the river All the faucets stopped?—
One feather is a bird, I claim; one tree, a wood; In her low voice I heard More than a mortal should; And so I stood apart,
I knew a woman, lovely in her bone… When small birds sighed, she would… Ah, when she moved, she moved more… The shapes a bright container can… Of her choice virtues only gods sh…
What’s this? A dish for fat lips. Who says? A nameless stranger. Is he a bird or a tree? Not every… Water recedes to the crying of spi… An old scow bumps over black rocks…