Siesta

TWO POEMS

SIESTA

Under the boughs where emmets run

In tracks where tiny spiders hide,

Beside the blue-black tarmac road

Noon will advance and linger, ride

In moons of light along the ground.

Or flicks of flame on singing wire,

The golden stave where bar to bar

Is a bird arpeggio, a choir,

Alert to rise together, fly

Up, up, in midget music, then

With a pert eye and a quick wing

In a new formation perch again-

Glowing in pale translucent green

Full fathom five the mellowing fruit

Dives in a maze of music. Light

Sings in the leaves, the living root.

And rays in dapple pattern spread,

The violet, green and fluid blue

Till above the foliate oriel looms-

An engine droning, eager, new.

And where rose petals one by one

Reclined on April air, the blue

By wide caesurae streaming through

Is doom-dark boding terror too.

KANGCHENJ UNGA

Harsh hills be comfort, stubble-straight;

Stand up, unconquerable fact,

Rend straining sinews and exact

The strict thought, and clean hate.

Be war, be ruin, be the elate

Swerve, swing and mystery of mind;

Be stubborn music and the blind

Fight, fall and finish, end-all fate.

Despair make definite, the innate

Bright barren bitter beauty blend

With a frivolous bright bravery, end

This sick-at-heart, this oh-so-sorry state.

God's thought racks cloud-confusion, sheer

Black vitreous wall, blank precipice

Grown final. No analysis

Can find familiar footing. Here

All reason ends; ends summer; Time,

the eternal winter, watches, thrall

To flesh that faltered, limbs that shall

Perish, and live; in dying, climb.