We stand on the rose, we are images golden,
We move interchanging, attaining one crest:
One chin and one mouth and one nose and one forehead,
One mouth and one chin and one neck and one breast . . .
I pull you apart from me, struggle to bind you,
I free you, I rend you in seven great rays . . .
And we cling to them all . . . but we lose them, and slowly—
We slip with the rainbow down the blue bays.
ANNE KNISH
Opus 122
UPSTAIRS there lies a sodden thing
Sleeping.
Soon it will come down
And drink coffee.
I shall have to smile at it across the table.
How can I?
For I know that at this moment
It sleeps without a sign of life; it is as good as dead.
I will not consort with reformed corpses,
I the life-lover, I the abundant.
I have known living only;
I will not acknowledge kinship with death.
White graves or black, linen or porphyry,
Are all one to me.
And yet, on the Lybian plains
Where dust is blown,
A king once
Built of baked clay and bulls of bronze
A tomb that makes me waver.
EMANUEL MORGAN
Opus 46
I ONLY know that you are given me
For my delight.
No other angle finishes my soul
But you, you white.
I know that I am given you,
Black whirl to white,
To lift the seven colors up . . .
Focus of light!