Off Duty

Turner Cassity

Content chameleon of the leeward leaf,
Out of the wind and warping in the sun,
Has curving to your harbor cost your spine?
Too long the color, not enough the vein
Of this green life we garrison, I, you,
Search now for sustenance in altered air.
Rise! Vane your stiffened body toward the Trade
And trust a double language still will feed:
Two-reaching tongue and lightning utterance
Discover, lash to blood the sugared wing;
Be captor of the wind it folds, the cane
It brushes by; to amber in such speech
Our year the dark rums amber-storm and sun,
Leaf still, the sweet prey hurrying in time.