October 1, 1948
The Catalpa World
The tall catalpas bloomed in storm And catbirds filled the canopy With crying children, lost in snow: There was a child Who dared not go Under the catalpa snow. The […]
October 1, 1948
Latitudes
Between the mariner and his numb hand Shaped to the frozen oar, Climbing the ponderous slopes toward land, And the murderer Lost on the endless wave Of mountains lifting and […]
October 1, 1948
I Remember
I remember a yellow wood: A thousand thousand leaves lay underfoot And a thousand thousand tented from the sun Black stems and roots, a yellow rutted path, And I walked […]
October 1, 1946
At a Bible House
At a Bible HouseWhere smoking is forbidden By the Prophet’s Law, I saw you wiry, bed-ridden, Gone in the kidneys: raw Onions and a louse Twitched on the sheet before […]
October 1, 1946
The First Sunday in Lent
I. IN THE ATTIC The crooked family chestnut sighs, for March, Time’s fool, is storming up and down the town; The gray snow squelches and the well-born stamp From sermons […]
October 1, 1946
Mary Winslow
Her Irish maids could never spoon out mush Or orange-juice enough; the body cools And smiles as a sick child Who adds up figures, and a hush Grips at the […]
April 1, 1943
April, 1942
How terrible their trust, the little leaves, The odorless, uncurling into love, The warm day round them, careless if they curl. It is not there for them; the great clock […]
April 1, 1943
How We Shine
Why does it jog so slowly, the one rumor No idiot doubts, no sage of us denies: Death’s hand is last? The newest breathing infant, After so many autumns, after […]
April 1, 1943
Aetat 50
Will it be more of this that century day, If day at all, if number, if I live, Will it be this and better: what I know now Doubled at […]
July 1, 1941
Quiet and Firmer
Cotton gray goods quiet and firmer Sold in small amounts at steady prices. Some were unaware at distance from the market How those bolts reflected prepossessed their cost per head […]
July 1, 1941
Wading
Seven nuns went wading in the sea. They wore no shoes. They lined up along the shore and the shore washed out And flooded back to the very knee. A […]
July 1, 1941
On Page
What shall the bug do on the whipping page? Read it? That myself cannot, with more eye. Ride it, and travel nowhere in a rage? That takes a heavier spirit […]