From A Bus Window In Central Ohio,
Just Before A Thunder Shower
Cribs loaded with roughage huddle together
Before the north cloads.
The wind tiptoes between poplars.
The silver maple leaves squint
Toward the ground.
An old farmer, his scarlet face
Apoligetic with whiskey, swings back a barn door
And calls a hundred black-and-white Holsteins
From the clover field.
James Wright
Given winter nothing; hold; and the the flake
Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms.
All flawless hexagons may melt and break;
While you must feel the summer's rage of fire,
Beyond this frigid season's empty storms,
Banished to bloom, and bear the birds' desire.
My Grandmother's Ghost
She skimmed the yellow water like a moth,
Trailing her feet across the shallow stream;
She saw the berries, paused and sample them
Where a slight spider cleaned his narrow tooth.
Light in the air, she fluttered up the path,
So delicate to shun the leaves and damp,
Like some young wife, holding a slender lamp
To find her stray child, or the moon, or both.
Even before she reached the empty house,
She beat her wings ever so slightly, rose,
Followed a bee where apples blew like snow;
And then, forgetting what she wanted there,
Too full of blossom and green light to care,
She hurried to the ground, and slipped below.
James Wright
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