Writings

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) We set great wreaths of brightness on the graves of the passionate who required tribute of hot July flowers    : for you, O brittle-hearted, we bring offering remembering how your wrists were thin and your delicate bones not yet braced for conquering. The sharp cries of ghost-boys are keen above the meadows, the little girls continue graceful and wondering; flickering evening on the lakes recalls those young heirs whose developing years have sunk to earth their strength not tested, their praise unsung. Weave grasses for their childhood:     :     who will [...]

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) Two on the stairs in a house where they had loved     : mounting, and the steps a long ascent before them brown: a single step creaking high in the flight; the turn    : the quiet house and the cheese-yellow walls shadowed by night, dark; and the unlit lamps along the wall. Dusk piles in old house-corners rapidly.          Shade grows where corners round to flights of stairs again.          Evening accumulates under the treads of mounting stairs. They rise: he tightly-knit, clenched in anxiety, she calm, massive in female beauty, precise [...]

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) Here are the long fields inviolate of thought, here are the planted fields ranking the sky, signs in the earth : water-cast shuttles of light flickering the underside of rock. These have been shown before; but the fields know new hands, the son's fingers grasp warmly at the father's hoe ; there will be new ways of seeing these ancestral lands. "In town, the munitions plant has been poor since the war, And nothing but a war will make it rich again." Holy, holy, holy, sings the church next door. Time-ridden, a man [...]

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) My thoughts through yours refracted into speech transmute this room musically tonight, the notes of contact flowing, rhythmic, bright with an informal art beyond my single reach. Outside, dark birds fly in a greening time : wings of our sistered wishes beat these walls : and words afflict our minds in near footfalls approaching with latening hour's chime. And if an essential thing has flown between us, rare intellectual bird of communication, let us seize it quickly : let our preference choose it instead of softer things to screen us each from the [...]

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) How horrible late spring is, with the full death of the frozen tight bulbs brownly rotting in earth; and each chord of light rayed into slivers, a bunch of grapes plucked grape by grape apart, a warm chord broken into the chilled single notes. (Let us rely on cerebral titillation for the red stimulus of sensuous supply;) here is no heat, no fierce color: spring is no bacchante this year eager to celebrate her carnal dedication. The ghosts swim, lipless, eyeless, upward : the crazy hands point in five directions down : to [...]

Originally published in Theory of Flight (1935) TRADITION OF THIS ACRE This is the word our lips caress, our teeth bite on the pale spongy fruit of this, the name : mouthing the story, cowlike in dignity, and spitting it in the tarnished cuspidor of present days. And if there were radium in Plymouth Rock, they would not strike it (bruising the fair stone), nor gawk at Semiramis on Main Street nor measure the gentle Christ in terms of horse-power. Cracked bells are severally struck at noon. The furrow of their ways will cradle us all. Amen, amen, to the [...]

Originally published in U.S. 1 (1938) These are roads to take when you think of your country and interested bring down the maps again, phoning the statistician, asking the dear friend, reading the papers with morning inquiry. Or when you sit at the wheel and your small light chooses gas gauge and clock; and the headlights indicate future of road, your wish pursuing past the junction, the fork, the suburban station, well-travelled six-lane highway planned for safety. Past your tall central city's influence, outside its body: traffic, penumbral crowds, are centers removed and strong, fighting for good reason. These roads [...]