With Muted Passions

jt tan mel of fr mere

Hanson Baldwin, The N. Y. Times

In a hybernating rose, sex

Undressed unashamed as

Wet-lipped loins of lovers

Atop hills of kissed sleep

When the fleshed heat

Sweat its whitest dreams

Washed by spit of bees.

The thundermouths yawned,

Yapped at bent ankles

Of hills and bored trinkles

Of lightning that fell

Where no one looked.

Who cared? An IBM or atom

Was noisier than storm.

Honeymooners heard it hew

And sculpt the sky.

It dyed their pieturewindow

Into stainedglass. They fled

Into New Haven tombs

Out of dirty dirt towns

Into cities of cement sounds.

Here birdsong was static

A statistic that outsang

A cricket's larynx. The air

Conditioners were snowy

With somnolence: and oilburners

Had afterglows of love

Acts; without the mess.