As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours On the shore of the turbid Spoon With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish's burrow, Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead, First his waving antennae, like straws of hay, And soon his body, colored like soap-stone, Gemmed with eyes of jet. And you wondered in a trance of thought What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all. But later your vision watched for men and women Hiding in burrows of fate amid great cities, Looking for the souls of them to come out, So that you could see How they lived, and for what, And why they kept crawling so busily Along the sandy way where water fails As the summer wanes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COLUMBIAN ODE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR GREEK SONG: 1. THE STORM OF DELPHI by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by THOMAS MOORE NATALIA'S RESURRECTION: 7 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT AMELIA EARHART by HELEN BRYANT |