Poems by John Pilkey |
Titian. Flora (1515) Outside this western window every night A back yard spreads as spacious as a landing field, Rectangular and edged with irises So endless that a witness wonders How gardeners could have found the strength To plant them all. Three floors and bedroom up our windows siphon fragrance, Not from irises but backing them A heterogeneous crowd of odors By close and overhanging boughs and trunks So ancient that antiquity has cancelled thought And filled us with conviction of the odor only. Tonight's high-riding moon has lit the lawn And shown us plain as life six feet and more Of womanhood beside nocturnal irises Against the north in flowing white on large, moon-whitened feet. This other iris, sister to the rainbows at her heels And proper to the moon in lapidary silence Hour on hour until she lifts her eyes and sends them Through our window on a cushion of the blooming gust, Breaks silence, "Now's the time." John Davis Pilkey |
Statuesque |
