Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Sketch

The shadows of the ships

Rock on the crest

In the low blue lustre

Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide.

A long brown bar at the dip of the sky

Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt.

The lucid and endless wrinkles

Draw in, lapse and withdraw.

Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles

Wash on the floor of the beach.

Rocking on the crest

In the low blue lustre

Are the shadows of the ships.

Lost

Desolate and lone

All night long on the lake

Where fog trails and mist creeps,

The whistle of a boat

Calls and cries unendingly,

Like some lost child

In tears and trouble

Hunting the harbor’s breast

And the harbor’s eyes.

Flux

Sand of the sea runs red

Where the sunset reaches and quivers.

Sand of the sea runs yellow

Where the moon slants and wavers.

Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard

Stuff of the moon

Runs on the lapping sand

Out to the longest shadows.

Under the curving willows,

And round the creep of the wave line,

Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters

Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night.

Window

Night from a railroad car window

Is a great, dark, soft thing

Broken across with slashes of light.

Sunset from Omaha Hotel Window

Into the blue river hills

The red sun runners go

And the long sand changes

And today is a goner

And today is not worth haggling over.

Here in Omaha

The gloaming is bitter

As in Chicago

Or Kenosha.

The long sand changes.

Today is a goner.

Time knocks in another brass nail.

Another yellow plunger shoots the dark.

Constellations

Wheeling over Omaha

As in Chicago

Or Kenosha.

The long sand is gone

and all the talk is stars.

They circle in a dome over Nebraska.

Prairie Waters by Night

Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water—sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water; and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.

Bee Song

Bees in the late summer sun

Drone their song

Of yellow moons

Trimming black velvet,

Droning, droning a sleepysong.

Bumble Bee Days

The bumble bees clamber on the saw edges

of gladiolas.

Lemon-rusty honey bees drone in the ears

of hollyhocks.

Two leaves of a poplar drift among the

watching asters.

Jan Kubelik

Your bow swept over a string, and a long low note quivered to the air

(A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child perfect learning to suck milk.)