Colors of Poetry...

Three or four out of a thousand fell-blossoms and irises
hammered out sandals for her little feet

Paint Her

Painter, bare her on a plump hillock
and tip the light of the sun over her, and paint her;
burn musk and spikenard at her feet,
and frame her in a few stars, and nail her up.

The Mouth

How lovely it is, how lovely,
this mouth, this sweet mouth:
one lip the drippings of jasmine,
one lip the beckonings of the years,
and our little devils of bees
asking after you and after it

And the sparrow puzzled over what to do with her
while the night, drowning her in its bosom, kept her hidden

Dawn broke, and perfume filled her garden,
and the world was a mellowed sun,
and out of her kiss there hatched
a red rose nesting in its dewy heart

Sandal

If they gave me all your riches, O world,
do you know what I would do with them? Here is the news:
I would give them to a flower-girl gathering moons —
riches she never saw, nor dreamed of, in a season of years.

A Kiss

A tender kiss rolled off our lips —
and we forgot it;
and a star straying alone in the forest of night —
shone on it;
and a breeze come cool off the vineyard borders —
gathered it up;
and a sparrow, some spangled trilling passerby —
kept it for the night;
and they planted the kiss in a sheltered nook —
and swaddled it.

The star grew frosted watering it,
and the breeze dozed off, and its songs wilted.