rejectomorph: (sutter_buttes_scene)
rejectomorph ([personal profile] rejectomorph) wrote2005-03-20 05:54 am

Here Comes the Sun, Sort of

I wrote something and didn't like it, so I'm not posting it. Instead, there's just this:



Sunday Verse

Richard Wilbur

Lamarck Elaborated


"The environment creates the organ"


The Greeks were wrong who said our eyes have rays;
Not from these sockets or these sparkling poles
Comes the illumination of our days.
It was the sun that bored these two blue holes.

It was the song of doves begot the ear
And not the ear that first conceived of sound:
That organ bloomed in vibrant atmosphere,
As music conjured Illium from the ground.

The yielding water, the repugnant stone,
The poisoned berry and the flaring rose
Attired in sense the tactless finger-bone
And set the taste-buds and inspired the nose.

Out of our vivid ambiance came unsought
All sense but that most formidably dim.
The shell of balance rolls in seas of thought.
It was the mind that taught the head to swim.

Newtonian numbers set to cosmic lyres
Whelmed us in whirling worlds we could not know,
And by the imagined floods of our desires
The voice of sirens gave us vertigo.






Oh, yeah. Still raining, but less, as gray light wakes the first birds.

Wonderful

[identity profile] gutbloom.livejournal.com 2005-03-20 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Of course I want to add another verse devoted to the organ that I think the imagined flood of desires gave rise to, but seeing how today is Sunday, and your verse is my church, I will refrain.

[identity profile] daisydumont.livejournal.com 2005-03-20 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
i'm feeling skittish this morning, and on first trying to read this poem found my mind bouncing right off it. i tried again and am glad of it. thank you!