John Frederick Nims

This seablue fir that rode the mountain storm Is swaddled here in splints of tin to die. Sofas around in chubby velvet swarm; Onlooking cabinets glitter with flat eye; Here lacquer in the branches runs like rain And resin of treasure starts from every vein. Light is a dancer here and cannot rest. No tanagers or jays are half so bright As swarms of fire that deep in fragrance nest In jungles of the gilt exotic night Where melons hang like moonstone. White above Rises that perfect star, the sign of love. On carpets’ fairy turf, in rainbow dark, Here once the enchanted children laid their heads, Reached for the floating moon above the park, And all their hopes were simple blues and reds. Beneath the electric halo, none could see Swords in the ankle of the victim tree. Each named a patron star: Arthur said green For August in the country; and Betty blue For swinging and the Florida surf; while Jeanne Decided gold. One horoscope was true: The star of Donald low and lava-red— Enlisted Donald, in Australia dead. Our lives were bound to sorcery and night. Zodiacs crumble on the boughs of rust For every child is gone. Some burned too bright And now lie broken in the bins of dust; And some, a fortunate few, adventured far And found assurance in the perfect star.

When first the apprizing eye and tongue that muttered (Banished from Eden’s air? Or pride of apes?) Sat clinking flint on flint, as they shattered Snatched with a grin what fell in craftier shapes, The law was move or die. Lively from tigers; Dainty on deer. As weather called the tune. Oxen, we learned, would bear us. So would rivers. And that was science. On the whole a boon. What caveman on a round rock dumped a-grunting Rubbed at a rueful hip, brow darkening why? Or gaped at boulders over gravel shifting Until—a splendor of wheel-thought like sunrise! No wonder: such example in a heaven Revving immaculate gears, and at his feet The planet on her axle greased and even. Put any wheel to earth, and two wheels meet. Athens cut ruts of marble; ivory courses Caromed Apollo’s car of talkative gold. And Donne saw wagon-ways. The horsepower: horse Over the flats of Kansas sail-cars rolled. First planks on querulous ground, then treads of met Steel set edgewise, over stone for ties. A mountain? Sawtooth rail or crank-and-cable Till iron took serene the incredulous rise. Compleat with a nifty moniker,Puffing Billy, Best Friend of Charleston, Wabash Cannonball, Cycloped

Crude seeing’s all our joy: could we discern The cold dark infinite vast where atoms burn —Lone suns—in flesh, our treasure and our play, Who’d dare to breathe this fern-thick bird-rich day?