#Americans #Imagist #Women
Crash on crash of the sea, straining to wreck men; sea—boards… raging against the world, furious, stay at last, for against your fur… and your mad fight,
Thou art come at length More beautiful Than any cool god In a chamber under Lycia’s far coast,
You are clear O rose, cut in rock, hard as the descent of hail. I could scrape the colour from the petals
Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone
Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain, treasure
Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf, more precious
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop through this thick air—
I have had enough. I gasp for breath. Every way ends, every road, every foot-path leads at last to the hill-crest—
Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,
Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea—fish. I cover you with my net. What are you —banded one?
White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,
The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light
Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,
O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind
Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down