VI

The poems I wrote before I wrote this poem

Were like lilacs that bloomed atop the bush

Last Spring, a melancholy spray of flowers

Washed by the syncopation of the rain.

This lavender poem is sung in the full sun-

Light, height of summer of my years, a song

Whose melodious rhythm rushes to the heart

And sweeps on past the contours of this page.

And now, in a violet-hushed sunset, I sense,

Coming on across the stubbled cornfields,

An age-old mauve-like reminder, Father Death,

Who harvests even the most perfect poems.

But Cassandra, old blond Cocker princess

Of the household, will, above the North Wind snow,

Howl prophetic echoes, future poetry,

My purple mouth frozen like an O.