Monday 14 June 2010

Vermilion Pears







The Reader


All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as in a book
Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
crouched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back into coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
the melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

                                                   Wallace Stevens.












No comments: