Verse
Deppe, Anne Porter, Theodore
Anne Porter The Birds of Passage You are the one who made us You silver all the minnows in all rivers You wait in The deep woods To find the new-born fox-cubs And unseal their eyes...
...Anne Porter The Birds of Passage You are the one who made us You silver all the minnows in all rivers You wait in The deep woods To find the new-born fox-cubs And unseal their eyes You shower the sky with stars You walk alone In the wild royal darkness Of the heavens above the heavens Where no one else can go...
...Points of light glimmer along the darkening highway the distant rage of great storms...
...Are coming down from the north Your eyes wander through the olive groves When the storks of Europe marking the intricate haloing of the leaves Stretch out their necks toward Egypt and their twisted trunks...
...To drink from the scarlet flowers - St...
...Far off I hear the first clear notes of your singing...
...Augusti e On the other side of the world With only now and then I find you on your balcony The mast of a passing ship enjoying the African sunlight - your Queen For a resting-place and an inn of all colors - it pours down on everything not covered When the Canada geese by your shadow...
...When the fragile swallows assemble For their pilgrimages Theodore Deppe When the hummingbirds Walking Fast Who are scarcely more Than a glittering breath There is indeed some light in men but let them Set out for the rain-forest walk fast walk fast lest the shadows come...
...You set off into the darkness at great speed...
...with its healing rains...
...I start up after you but the bandages of my flesh unravel and tangle me...
...From their nests on the chimney-tops When shaking their big wings open Old man, Inquisitor And trailing their long legs after them and father, your yellow eyes They rise up heavily become the sky that lets To begin their autumn flight the twisters down: a darkness that covered me at my birth You who speak without words smothering me in the cries of unbaptized infants...
...To your creatures who live without words I wrestled with you as with an angel Are hiding under their feathers yet sensed as you pressed me near To give them a delicate certainty the storm that broke within you On the long dangerous night journey...
...All around you, the contours of the Empire dissolve and the wind begins to whistle on a barren road...
...20 June 1986: 373...
Vol. 113 • June 1986 • No. 12
