Precipitations Part 5

A little white thistle moon Blown over the cold crags and fens: A little white thistle moon Blown across the frozen heather.

ARGO

White sails Unbillowed by any wind, The moon s.h.i.+p, Among shoals of cloud, Stranded stars, Bare bosoms, And netted hair of light, On the sh.o.r.es of the world.

j.a.pANESE MOON

Thick cl.u.s.tered wistaria clouds, A young girl moon in a mist of almond flowers, Boughs and boughs of light; Then a round-faced ivory lady Nodding among fading chrysanthemums.

HOT MOON

Moon rise.

Great gong sounds, s.h.i.+ning-- Little feet run away.

Loud and solemn, the funeral gong.

Little feet run away.

THE NAIAD

The moon rises, Glistening, Naked white, Out of her stream.

Wet marble shoulders Shake star drops on the clouds.

FLOODTIDE

Across the shadows of the surf The lights of the s.h.i.+p Twinkle despondently.

The clinging absorbent gray darkness Sucks them into itself: Drinks the pale golden tears greedily.

MOUNTAIN Pa.s.s IN AUGUST

Night scatters grapes for the harvest.

The moon burns like a leaf.

Along the mountain path A thin streak of light Creeps hungrily with its silver belly to the earth.

The old hound laps up the shadows.

Her teats drip the brighter darkness.

CONTEMPORARIES

HARMONICS

YOUNG MEN

Fauns, Eternal pagans, Beautiful and obscene, Leaping through the street With a flicker of hoofs, And a flash of tails,

You want dryads And they give you prost.i.tutes.

YOUNG GIRLS

Your souls are wet flowers, Bathed in kisses and blood.

Golden Clyties, The wheel of light Rushes over your b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

HOUSE SPIRITS

Women are flitting around in their sh.e.l.ls.

Pale dilutions of the waters of the world Come through the windows.

Back and forth the women glide in their little waters; Cellar to garret and garret to cellar, Winding in and out under door arches and down pa.s.sages, They and their sp.a.w.n, In the sh.e.l.l, In the cavern.

You may come in the sh.e.l.l to overpower her, Males, But in the sh.e.l.l, in the sh.e.l.l.

She cannot be torn from the sh.e.l.l without dying; And what is the pleasure of intercourse with the dead?

AT THE MEETING HOUSE

Souls as dry as autumn leaves, The color long since out.

The organ plays.

The leaves crackle and rustle a little; Then sink down.

Old ladies with gray moss on their chins, Old men with camphor and cotton packed around their heads, Thin child spirits, sharp and shrill as whistles.

Gray old trees; Gaunt old woods; Souls as dry as leaves After autumn is past.

CHRISTIANS

Blind, they storm up from the pit.

You gave them the force, You, when You poured the measure of agony into them.

Didn't You know what it would be, Giving blind people fire?

Not gold and red and amber fire, But marsh fire.

Fire of ice, Suffering forged into suffering!

They are coming up now.

The sword is uplifted in the hands of the monster.

My valiant little puppets, Did you think you could stand out against this?

Pierrot and Columbine breeding in the flowers....

There must be no flowers.

DEVIL'S CRADLE

Black man hanged on a silver tree; (Down by the river, Slow river, White breast, White face with blood on it.) Black man creaks in the wind, Knees slack.

Brown poppies, melting in moonlight, Swerve on glistening stems Across an endless field To the music of a blood white face And a tired little devil child Rocked to sleep on a rope.

WOMEN

Crystal columns, When they bend they crack; Brittle souls, Conforming, yet not conforming-- Mirrors.

Masculine souls pa.s.s across the mirrors: Whirling, gliding ecstasies-- Retreating, retreating, Dimly, dimly, Like dreams fading across the mirrors.

Then the mirrors, Stark and brilliant in the suns.h.i.+ne, Blank as the desert, Blank as the Sphinx, Winking golden eyes in the twinkles of light, Silent, immutable, vacuous infinity, Illimitable capacity for absorption, Absorbing nothing.