Thursday, May 10, 2012

Gateway to September (Charles Burchfield)

















#64

A javelin of sunlight shivers into earth
After piercing the shoulder of a dancer's
Outline writhing among ecstatic flowers.
Here is not a spring of the usual rebirth,
And there is not the autumnal answer,
But a simultaneity of light and hours.
The moth and the wildflower endure,
Since nothing is meaningless or impure.
The mother dances and her vibrations
Modulate the chaotic song of creation.
"In my beginning is my end," Eliot says;
A comforting notion, and frightening.
Sunlight yields to darkness and lightning.
"Make September wait," the mantis prays.