The Field

He saw the bloom of morning on her arms

; Compounded of the butterfly-lifting light

And the translucent flourishes of bright

Woven on her flesh, the envelope of down.

Where they stood, the field was a cricket stillness

Looped with thorny vines where purple hung

And underleaves dampened the smell of the sun.

He knew they were part of that wilderness.

What hope, though impulse gathered like a fist

For purpose blind of plan? The knowledge was his,

Her eyes being untaught, her frightened dress

Omphalos to omphalos tight on her stopped breast.

Ignorance admonished him with social eyes

More dangerous than the prone advance of Crotalus;

Confused within a whirl of ice and gold

He stooped to the ungathered dewberries.