Recession

David McCord

I must gather my poems as the heart made them,
As the hand wrote, since when I can't recall;
For who shall number the leaves as the wind laid them
Out of the sun's way in the deciduous fall?

They came so suddenly, like white gulls forsaking
Islands crumbed in the apron of the sea.
My hands were quick with their snows, with the cold
     flaking
Of words and syllables and wickery.

So they were done, or they are not done ever,
And I must gather them again as they were signed;
Like the wild speech of the gipsy, like the quiver
Of moonlight spilling on the half-drawn blind.

I cannot be sure, but some were of the roses and dahlias,
Sweet with a solace and the cool ministry of rain;
And others were bandit, like a flaming in the tall Hima-
     layas,
And others were bitter with the last increment of pain.

I did not need them, for why should I be needing
Things that were fallible and fallen as the morning dews?
Man cannot reshape from the garden of his weeding
The scintillate dust, the flowers he dared refuse.

So I must gather them now in patient example
Of what it may be to labor the ten-thousandth page,
And find of it all not the one perfect sample
That shall outlive, as we shall not outlive, our age.
                                 David McCord

             CATS AND ZINNIAS

The affinity
between cats and zinnias
is a necessary undeclared sufficiency.
Consider
the tall maroon zinnia
unphallicized aristocrat of democracy.
Consider the crossed paws
and the detached indifferent humor
as of aged disillusioned celibate bishops
somnolent in moist lavender afternoons.