WIND AND SILVER
Poem by Amy Lowell
Greatly shining,
The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky;
And the fish-ponds shake their backs and flash their dragon scales
As she passes over them.
“Wind and Silver” and other poetry by Amy Lowell appears in the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology, a 240-page collection of poetry and prose from over 60 authors past and present — available at Amazon.com.
Photo: Joel Bramley, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
AUTUMN
Poem by Amy Lowell
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
Illustration: Zelda Richardson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SEPTEMBER 1918
Poem by Amy Lowell
This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;
The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;
The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,
And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.
Under a tree in the park,
Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,
Were carefully gathering red berries
To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
Today I can only gather it
And put it into my lunchbox,
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavor to balance myself
Upon a broken world.
Painting: “Berry Picking Children on a Summer Day” by Gerda Wallander (1905)
THE LETTER
by Amy Lowell
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly’s legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncertain window and thebare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts, who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.
SEPTEMBER 1918
Poem by Amy Lowell
This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;
The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;
The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,
And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.
Under a tree in the park,
Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,
Were carefully gathering red berries
To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
Today I can only gather it
And put it into my lunchbox,
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavor to balance myself
Upon a broken world.
Painting: “Berry Picking Children on a Summer Day” by Gerda Wallander (1905)
WIND AND SILVER
Poem by Amy Lowell
Greatly shining,
The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky;
And the fish-ponds shake their backs and flash their dragon scales
As she passes over them.
Photo: Joel Bramley, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
AUTUMN
Poem by Amy Lowell
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
Illustration: Zelda Richardson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Silver Birch Press 