First there is the wind but not like the familiar wind but long and without lapses or falling away or surges of air as is usual but rather like the persistent pressure of a river or a running tide.
This wind is from the other side and has an odor unlike the odor of the winds with us but like time if time had odor and were cold and carried a bitter and sharp taste like rust on the taste of snow or the fragrance of thunder.
When the air has this taste of time the frontiers are not far from us.
Then too there are the animals. There are always animals under the small trees. They belong neither to our side nor to theirs but are wild and because they are animals of such kind that wildness is unfamiliar in them as the horse for example or the goat and often sheep and dogs and like creatures their wandering there is strange and even terrifying signaling as it does the violation of custom and the subversion of order.
There are also the unnatural lovers the distortion of images the penetration of mirrors and the inarticulate meanings of the dreams. The dreams are in turmoil like a squall of birds.
Finally there is the evasion of those with whom we have come. It is at the frontiers that the companions desert us—that the girl returns to the old country
(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916) I Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, Commemorative of our soldier dead,
The dialect of the scrub in the dry season withers the flow of English. Things burn for days without translation, with the heat of the scorched pastures and their skeletal cows. Every noun is a stump with its roots showing, and the creole language rushes like weeds until the entire island is overrun,
I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight, A-purpose to revisit the old claim. I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate, And the lads who once were with me in the game. Poor boys, they’re down-and-outers, and there’s scarcely one to-day Can show a dozen colors in his poke; And me, I’m still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and gray, And I’m looking for a grub-stake, and I’m broke.
Where ever something breathes Heart beating the rise and fall Of mountains, the waves upon the sky Of seas, the terror is our ignorance, that’s Why it is named after our home, earth Where art is locked between Gone and Destination The destiny of some other where and feeling The ape knew this, when his old lady pulled him up Off the ground. Was he grateful, ask him he’s still sitting up there Watching the sky’s adventures, leaving two holes for his own. Oh sing Gigantic burp past the insects, swifter than the ugly Stanleys on the ground Catching monkey meat for Hyenagators, absolute boss of what does not Arrive in time to say anything. We hear that eating, that doo dooing, that Burping, we had a nigro mayor used to burp like poison zapalote
All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay. So with my eyes I traced the line Of the horizon, thin and fine, Straight around till I was come Back to where I'd started from; And all I saw from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see; These were the things that bounded me; And I could touch them with my hand, Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, cloudless, calm, serene. About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention—a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, & continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day . . . There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer days, and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen . . . In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds; but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a summer walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected . . . We procured a cuckoo, and cutting open the breastbone and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pincushion, with food, which upon nice examination, we found to consist of various insects, such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which, as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing. Among this farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit . . .
Androgyne, mon amour, brochette de coeur was plat du jour, (heart lifted on a metal skewer, encore saignante et palpitante) where I dined au solitaire, table intime, one rose vase, lighted dimly, wildly gay,
Likely as not a ruined head gasket Spitting at every power stroke, if not a crank shaft Bearing knocking at the roots of the thing like a pile-driver: A machine involved with itself, a concentrated Hot lump of a machine Geared in the loose mechanics of the world with the valves jumping And the heavy frenzy of the pistons. When the thing stops,
Man’s Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense, that tho’ she guide his highest flight heav’nward, and teach him dignity morals manners and human comfort, she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell. Not without alliance of the animal senses hath she any miracle: Lov’st thou in the blithe hour
Am I a character in the dreams of the god Hermes the messenger? Certainly many of my dreams have nothing to do with the common life around me. There are never any automobiles or airplanes in them. These dreams belong to an age in
You are the problem I propose, My dear, the text my musings glose: I call you for convenience love. By definition you’re a cause Inferred by necessary laws— You are so to the saints above. But in this shadowy lower life I sleep with a terrestrial wife
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