Then I raised my head
and stared out over
the blue February waste
to the blue bank of hill
with stars on it
in strings and festoons –
but above that:
one opaque
stone of a cloud
just on the hill
left and right
as far as I could see;
and above that
a red streak, then
icy blue sky!
It was a fearful thing
to come into a man's heart
at that time; that stone
over the little blinking stars
they'd set there.
~~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) from A Book of Poems: Al que quiere!, 1917
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Let confusion be the design
and all my thoughts go,
swallowed by desire: recess
from promises in
the November of your arms.
Release from the rose: broken
reeds, strawpale,
through which, from easy
branches that mock the blood
a few leaves fall. There
the mind is cradled,
stripped also and returned
to the ground, a trivial
and momentary clatter. Sleep
and be brought down and so
condone the world, eased of
the jagged sky and all
its petty imageries, flying
birds, its fogs and windy
phalanxes . . .
~~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) from Collected Later Poems, 1944 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
Pines cut dark on a bronze sky . . .
A juniper tree laughing to the harp of the wind . . .
Last year's oak leaves rustling . . .
And oh, the sky like a heart of fire
Burned down to those coals that have the color of fruit . . .
Cherries . . . light red grapes . . .
~~ Hilda Conkling (1910-1986) fromShoes of the Wind, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]
In the flashes and black shadows
of July
the days, locked in each other’s arms,
seem still
so that squirrels and colored birds
go about at ease over
the branches and through the air.
Where will a shoulder split or
a forehead open and victory be?
Nowhere.
Both sides grow older.
And you may be sure
not one leaf will lift itself
from the ground
and become fast to a twig again.
~~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) from Sour Grapes, 1921 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
A fall of snow
And then a frosty dusk,
High up the pines
Were pilgrims in grey cloaks;
The mad red glow
Of fallen leaves
Ran up the slopes
And over the wood floor.
I thought the trees
Coloured embroideries
On a grey veil –
In front of all a spray
Clear-cut and Japanese
Of lemon-leaved sycamore.
~~ Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967) from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929
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]
Sunshine and shadow play amid the trees In bosky groves, while from the vivid sky
The sun’s gold arrows fleck the fields at noon, Where weary cattle to their slumber hie.
How sweet the music of the purling rill,
Trickling adown the grassy hill!
While dreamy fancies come to give repose
When the first star of evening glows.
The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine,—
like no leaf that ever was —
edge the bare garden.
~~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) from Complete Collected Poems, 1906-1938, 1938 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Trees in the Wind, November 2007. Photograph taken by Dori (dori@merr.info).
Oh, your words are bitter to me
As these last flakes of snow are
To the little shining buds; but no bud
That glistens like a raindrop on a tree
Is so fresh with love.
~~ Pearl Andelson Sherry (1899-1966) from Poetry, December 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Mattwj2002, Snow outside Minneapolis April, 18, 2013. CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons.
flowing edge to edge
their clear edges meeting —
the winds of this northern March —
blow the bark from the trees
the soil from the field
the hair from the heads of
girls, the shirts from the backs
of the men, roofs from the
houses, the cross from the
church, clouds from the sky
the fur from the faces of
wild animals, crusts
from scabby eyes, scales from
the mind and husbands from wives
~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
from Collected Poems, 1921-1931, 1934
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down —
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes —
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there —
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), 1920
from Sour Grapes, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
.jpg)
_-_A_Summer_Landscape_-_980568_-_National_Trust.jpg)
_-_A_Summer_Landscape_-_980568_-_National_Trust.jpg){kind=link}