Fruit cannot drop
Through this thick air —
Fruit cannot fall into heat
That presses up and blunts
The points of pears
And rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat —
Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.
Madonna of the Evening Flowers. [Amy Lowell]
All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired.
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.
Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur.
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet `Te Deums' of the Canterbury bells.
The New God. [James Oppenheim]
Ye morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells,
And with dew water the walk's dust for the burden-bearing ants:
Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells of gold
And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . .
O now I see by the opening of blossoms,
And of bills of the hungry fledglings,
And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects,
Morning's business is afoot: Earth is busied with a million mouths!
Where goes eaten grass and thrush-snapped dragonfly?
Creation eats itself, to spawn in swarming sun-rays . . .
Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on life . . .
But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats,
Like a well of light moving in morning's light,
What is this garmented animal that comes eating and drinking among you?
What is this upright one, with spade and with shears?