Daisy
The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha! Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves –
The sun is upon a
slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back –
it is a woman also –
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays – a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!
One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear: brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.
But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.
~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), 1921
from Sour Grapes, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
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