Six Significant Landscapes

An old man

In the shadow of a pine

In China.

He sees larkspur,

Blue and white,

At the edge of the shadow,

Move in the wind.

His beard moves in the wind.

The pine tree moves in the wind.

Thus water

Over weeds.

The night is of the

Of a woman's arm:

Night, the female,

Obscure,

Fragrant and supple,

Conceals herself.

A pool shines,

Like a

Shaken in a dance.

II measure

Against a tall tree.

I find that I am much taller,

For I reach right up to the sun,

With my eye;

And I reach to the shore of the

With my ear.

Nevertheless,

I

The way ants

In and out of my shadow.

When my dream was near the moon,

The white folds of its

Filled with yellow light.

The soles of its

Grew red.

Its hair

With certain blue

From stars,

Not far off.

Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,

Nor the chisels of the long streets,

Nor the mallets of the

And high towers,

Can

What one star can carve,

Shining through the grape-leaves.

Rationalists, wearing square hats,

Think, in square rooms,

Looking at the floor,

Looking at the ceiling.

They confine

To right-angled triangles.

If they tried rhomboids,

Cones, waving lines, ellipses —As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon —Rationalists would wear sombreros.