SPECTRES came dancing up the wind,
Trailing down the long grass,
Shooting high, undisciplined,
To join the sun and see you pass . . .
The colors of the pointed glass.
Under a willow-maze you went
Unsaddened . . . But a violet beam
Fell on the white face, backward bent,
Of a body in a stream.
Into the sun you came again,
With sun-red light your feet were shod . . .
And round you stood a ring of feathered men
With naked arms acknowledging a god.
Indigo-birds and squirrels on a tree
And orioles flashed in and out . . .
The yellow outline of Eurydice
Waited for Orpheus in a black redoubt
With a beaded fern you waved away a gnat . . .
And maidens, hung with vivid beads of green,
One of them bearing in her arms an orange cat,
Held palms about a queen.
Then you were lost to sight
And locking trees became the clouds of you,
Till you emerged, the moon upon your shoulder, and the night
Bloomed blue.
ANNE KNISH
Opus 76
YEARS are nothing;
Days alone count;
These, and the nights.
I have seen the grey stars marching,
And the green bubbles in wine,
And there are Gothic vaults of sleep.
My cathedral
Has one great spire
Tawny in the sunlight.
Gargoyles haunt its nave;
High up amid its dark-arches
Forgotten songs live shadowy.
Gold and sardonyx
Deck its altars.
Its mighty roof
Is copper rivering with the rain.