Classic Poem

Ha, but the sun among us …
Ha, but the great sun
Shouts in the shouldering leaves and the grasshoppers
Scatter before him. Ho, but his brass
Voice is the voice of the beater of horses.
He roars from the splashed sea driving the
Nude girls through the surf, striking their
Golden rumps with the hand flat, deriding
Shyness with lewd words. He is loud
In the blown blue sky as the laughter of
Fed kings under arbors

Ha, but the sun among us … wearers of
Black cloths, bearers of secrets!
The jay jeer of the sun in the ear of our
Pain … and the nudge of the blunt pink
Thumb troubling the pride of despair in us …

Ha, but the sun in our air

We stand in the still earth and the sun comes
Swelling among us with large light, with the
Browsing of bees about him, with flattering
Tree sound. He is tall. He reveals the
Dark to us (He is informed in these matters)
“Behold!” he mouths in the gilt twigs.
He advises our souls with the blabbed loose
Light over water. He declaims the spangles of
Glass in the high ways. He reproves us with
Shining. Ho, he repeats the proverbs of
Brisk leaves to enliven the laugh in us.
He lays his hands on our sex to persuade us of
Happiness under the sea noon

How is it that the clouds still hang on thee?

Why seems it so—particular—with thee?

Seems, Madam! …

Ha, we are preached by the
Loud mouth, by the blooming of brightness.
We are admonished with flares. “Get over it!”
“Cease,” he instructs us, “to feel the emotions of
Misery! Be bright boys! Console yourselves!”

Ah, but the sun in our sky!

I shall in all my best obey you …


Only
We have these dreams
Only—
the old have announced us the
Irremediable woe, the ill
Long done, lost in the times before memory.