(1948)
#Americans
I saw a young snake glide Out of the mottled shade And hang, limp on a stone: A thin mouth, and a tongue Stayed, in the still air.
I was always one for being alone, Seeking in my own way, eternal pur… At the edge of the field waiting f… Standing, silent, on sandy beaches… Knowing the sinuousness of small w…
I wake to sleep, and take my wakin… I feel my fate in what I cannot f… I learn by going where I have to… We think by feeling. What is ther… I hear my being dance from ear to…
When I put her out, once, by the… She looked so limp and bedraggled, So foolish and trusting, like a si… Or a wizened aster in late Septem… I brought her back in again
Against the stone breakwater, Only an ominous lapping, While the wind whines overhead, Coming down from the mountain, Whistling between the arbors, the…
All profits disappear: the gain Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum; And now grim digits of old pain Return to litter up our home. We hunt the cause of ruin, add,
In Saginaw, in Saginaw, The wind blows up your feet, When the ladies’ guild puts on a f… There’s beans on every plate, And if you eat more than you shoul…
Let others probe the mystery if th… Time—harried prisoners of Shall a… The right thing happens to the hap… The bird flies out, the bird flies… The hill becomes the valley, and i…
This urge, wrestle, resurrection o… Cut stems struggling to put down f… What saint strained so much, Rose on such lopped limbs to a new… I can hear, underground, that suck…
One feather is a bird, I claim; one tree, a wood; In her low voice I heard More than a mortal should; And so I stood apart,
Nothing would sleep in that cellar… Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting f… Shoots dangled and drooped, Lolling obscenely from mildewed cr… Hung down long yellow evil necks,…
The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans
The fruit rolled by all day. They prayed the cogs would creep; They thought about Saturday pay, And Sunday sleep. Whatever he smelled was good:
The wind billowing out the seat of… My feet crackling splinters of gla… The half-grown chrysanthemums star… Up through the streaked glass, fla… A few white clouds all rushing eas…
Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest.