Classic Poem

of which I am the sand—
one of the sands—in which
the turtle eggs are baking—

The people are running away
toward me, Hibiscus,
where I lie, sad,

by the stern
slaying palm trees—
(They're so much better

at a distance than they are
up close. Cocoanuts
aren't they?

or Royal palms?
They are so tall the wind
rips them to shreds)

—this frightened
frantic pilgrimage has left
my bungalows up here

lonely as the Lido in April
“Florida the Flowery!”
Well,

it's a kind of borrowed
pleasure after all (as at the movies)
to see them

tearing off to escape it
this winter
this winter that I feel

So—
already ten o'clock?
Vorwärts!

e-e i-i o-o u-u a-a
Shall I write it in iambs?
Cottages in a row

all radioed and showerbathed?
But I am sick of rime—
The whole damned town

is riming up one street
and down another, yet there is
the rime of her white teeth

the rime of glasses
at my plate, the ripple rime
the rime her fingers make—

And we thought to escape rime
by imitation of the senseless
unarrangement of wild things—

the stupidest rime of all—
Rather, Hibiscus,
let me examine

those varying shades
of orange, clear as an electric
bulb on fire

or powdery with sediment—
matt, the shades and textures
of a Cubist picture

the charm
of fish by Hartley; orange
of ale and lilies

orange of topaz, orange of red hair
orange of curaçoa
orange of the Tiber

turbid, orange of the bottom
rocks in Maine rivers
orange of mushrooms

of Cepes that Marshal loved
to cook in copper
pans, orange of the sun—

I shall do my pees, instead—
boiling them in test tubes
holding them to the light

dropping in the acid—
Peggy has a little albumen