The dayseye hugging the earth in August, ha! Spring is gone down in purple, weeds stand high in the corn, the rainbeaten furrow is clotted with sorrel and crabgrass, the branch is black under the heavy mass of the leaves -- The sun is upon a slender green stem ribbed lengthwise. He lies on his back -- it is a woman also -- he regards his former majesty and round the yellow center, split and creviced and done into minute flowerheads, he sends out his twenty rays -- a little and the wind is among them to grow cool there! One turns the thing over in his hand and looks at it from the rear: brownedged, green and pointed scales armor his yellow. But turn and turn, the crisp petals remain brief, translucent, greenfastened, barely touching at the edges: blades of limpid seashell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FIDDLING WOOD by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET HIGH PLAINS RAG by JAMES GALVIN ON A TUFT OF GRASS by EMMA LAZARUS VOICES OF THE AIR by KATHERINE MANSFIELD UNDER A PATCHED SAIL by MARIANNE MOORE ESSAY: AT NIGHT THE AUTOPORTRAIT AT NIGHT by ELENI SIKELIANOS |