Saturday, October 2, 2010

William Carlos Williams: Daisy


.

photo

Field of daisies and orange flowers, possibly hawkweed, Vermont
: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Library of Congress)


    The dayseye hugging the earth
    in August, ha! Spring is
    gone down in purple,
    weeds stand high in the corn,
    the rainbeaten furrow
    is clotted with sorrel
    and crabgrass, the
    branch is black under
    the heavy mass of the leaves --
    The sun is upon a
    slender green stem
    ribbed lengthwise.
    He lies on his back --
    it is a woman also --
    he regards his former
    majesty and
    round the yellow center,
    split and creviced and done into
    minute flowerheads, he sends out
    his twenty rays -- a little
    and the wind is among them
    to grow cool there!

    One turns the thing over
    in his hand and looks
    at it from the rear: brownedged,
    green and pointed scales
    armor his yellow.

    But turn and turn,
    the crisp petals remain
    brief, translucent, greenfastened,
    barely touching at the edges:
    blades of limpid seashell.



File:A Gaenseblume3.JPG

Daisy (Bellis perennis): photo by Friedrich Böhringer, 2007


William Carlos Williams: Daisy, from Sour Grapes (1921)