.
- 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.
Daisy (Bellis perennis): photo by Friedrich Böhringer, 2007
William Carlos Williams: Daisy, from Sour Grapes (1921)
