The realm is here and masque of light,
When struck rent wood and cornland by
The belled heaven claps the ground.
Husk, seed, pale ear, pale straw, the year reposes,
And a thin frieze of earth rims round
The whey-gleamed, wet-ash-dimming sky,
And whole trodden floor of light,
Where that slant limb winds with its shadowing closes.
Distant, as lustrally, the sun
Within their pearl of nimble play,
Where traverse with rehearsing tread
Orients of prime to their all-reaping west,
Strangered from every grave glissade
Of blue enduskings or of milky day,
And wan, with silvery nimbus on,
Keeps now his burning sojourn unprofessed.
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Past barks mouse-sleek, wattled as serpent skin,
Rare acorn-fall, rare squirrel-flash;
Without and in a silenced scene
The gamin wanderer of immense day
Can with luxuriant bendings preen
And in his pebble-scoopings plash,
To alarmless Eden flown,
And suddenly for nothing flies away.
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And all are sole in the estranging day.
Forms of all things the candour wear
Of the undefending dead,
And forth from out a mortal stricture gaze
Of unperspective radiance shed
Through everywhere horizoned air,
Tasking precising love to say
For its dense words the azuring periphrase.
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To her own brink light glides, intent
An unsphering sense to bind
By narrowing measures in;
Sidelong as then up branching March she bade
Stiff buds into the glancing skein,
And the green reel unwind.
Now towards another pole she's leant,
And netherward for partner draws her shade.
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,
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The autumn equinox this year will be Friday, Sept. 22.
Just found this poem, and poet.
Will be brief; hardware issues keep me mostly on a wonky tablet. ;-)
But what extraordinary syntax.
Wants to be read aloud, and dwelt on: the bird has fledged and flown, now peer into the nest, see how it holds together. Still not sure why, haunting.
Unusual:
A
B
C
D
C
B
A
D
Rhyme scheme analogous to sun path, back and forth.
Retyping in presence of autocorrect was actually interesting on some points: e.g., for frieze it gave freeze, revealing a second valency.
Léonie Fuller Adams, 1899-1998 (Poetry Foundation site)
Léonie Adams (Wikipedia)
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More on DKos:
Classic Poetry Group
FreeWriters
Readers and Book Lovers (with full schedule of literary diaries)