To E.
E.
CummingsI see the horses and the sad
Of my childhood in an agate
Roving, under the clean sheets,
Over a black hole in the sky.
The ill man becomes the child,
The evil man becomes the lover;
The natural man with evil
Pulls down the sphereless sky for cover.
I see the gray heroes and the
Of my childhood in the nuclear eye-Horizons spent in dun
Sucked down into the sinking sky.
The happy child becomes the man,
The elegant man becomes the mind,
The fathered gentleman who
Perform quick feats of gentle kind.
I see the long field and the
Of my childhood in the carbolic eye,
Dissolving pupil of the
Seared from the raveled hole of the sky.
The nice ladies and gentlemen,
The teaser and the
Play cockalorum-and-the-hen,
When the cool afternoons pour green:
I see the father and the cooling
Of my childhood in the swallowing
Down, down, until down is
And there is nothing in the eye,
Shut shutter of the mineral
Who takes the fatherless dark to bed,
The acid sky to the brain-pan;
And calls the crows to peck his head.
