SPRING STRAINS
In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
crowded erect with desire against
the sky–
tense blue-grey twigs
slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
them in–
two blue-grey birds chasing
a third struggle in circles, angles,
swift convergings to a point that bursts
instantly!
Vibrant bowing limbs
pull downward, sucking in the sky
that bulges from behind, plastering itself
against them in packed rifts, rock blue
and dirty orange!
But–
(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
the blinding and red-edged sun-blur–
creeping energy, concentrated
counterforce – welds sky, buds, trees,
rivets them in one puckering hold!
Sticks through! Pulls the whole
counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
locks even the opaque, not yet defined
ground in a terrific drag that is
loosening the very tap-roots!
On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
at full cry! Now they are
flung outward and up – disappearing suddenly!
from Al Que Quiere, 1917
the cacophany of a single moment – all instruments loosening-up, scaling, tensing, waiting for the grand inaugural middle ‘C’ – all held together in a fidgety bag; the shabby audacity of this piece – ‘let’s not just have vignettes, let’s also have local, tectonic landscapes’ – made my young eyes work, I had to read it several times successively to hold together all the strands, and then he lets me off, I finally ‘got’ the three birds disappearing … you don’t hold it all together, you don’t; there’s no need to; William Carlos Williams was a crafty master
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
birds wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
blue wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
branches & sky wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
grey wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
orange wormhole: I
passing wormhole: tram
red wormhole: Bridgnorth
Spring wormhole: city streets
sun & trees & William Carlos Williams wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
