Stars at Tallapoosa

The lines are straight and swift between the stars.

The night is not the cradle that they cry,

The criers, undulating the deep-oceaned phrase.

The lines are much too dark and much too sharp.

The mind herein attains simplicity.

There is no moon, on single, silvered leaf.

The body is no body to be seen

But is an eye that studies its black lid.

Let these be your delight, secretive hunter,

Wading the sea-lines, moist and ever-mingling,

Mounting the earth-lines, long and lax, lethargic.

These lines are swift and fall without diverging.

The melon-flower nor dew nor web of either

Is like to these. But in yourself is like:

A sheaf of brilliant arrows flying straight,

Flying and falling straightway for their pleasure,

Their pleasure that is all bright-edged and cold;

Or, if not arrows, then the nimblest motions,

Making recoveries of young nakedness

And the lost vehemence the midnights hold.

Floral Decoration for Bananas

Well, nuncle, this plainly won’t do.

These insolent, linear peels

And sullen, hurricane shapes

Won’t do with your eglantine.

They require something serpentine.

Blunt yellow in such a room!

You should have had plums tonight,

In an eighteenth-century dish,

And pettifogging buds,

For the women of primrose and purl,

Each one in her decent curl.

Good God! What a precious light!

But bananas hacked and hunched …

The table was set by an ogre,

His eye on an outdoor gloom

And a stiff and noxious place.

Pile the bananas on planks.

The women will be all shanks

And bangles and slatted eyes.

And deck the bananas in leaves

Plucked from the Carib trees,

Fibrous and dangling down,

Oozing cantankerous gum

Out of their purple maws,

Darting out of their purple craws

Their musky and tingling tongues.

To the One of Fictive Music

Sister and mother and diviner love,

And of the sisterhood of the living dead

Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,

And of the fragrant mothers the most dear

And queen, and of diviner love the day

And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread

Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown

Its venom of renown, and on your head

No crown is simpler than the simple hair.

Now, of the music summoned by the birth

That separates us from the wind and sea,

Yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,

By being so much of the things we are,

Gross effigy and simulacrum, none

Gives motion to perfection more serene

Than yours, out of our imperfections wrought,

Most rare, or ever of more kindred air

In the laborious weaving that you wear.

For so retentive of themselves are men

That music is intensest which proclaims

The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,

And of all vigils musing the obscure,

That apprehends the most which sees and names,

As in your name, an image that is sure,

Among the arrant spices of the sun,

O bough and bush and scented vine, in whom

We give ourselves our likest issuance.