Nebilungs

Murdered, falling down into the brown earth, whimpering
And dead; mothered in the cruel winds of October
When the pale leaves cristled hard as ice and white
As snow fall above her ruby lids, her still-glowing
Embers of skin, still-beating heart. Dead:
Weep, meadows, you willows bend your leaves, strain
Until your roots crack from the earth, until you tilt
And fall. Fall! Autumn everywhere! : You've murdered
The beautiful summer, you've murdered the still-flying wings
Of the spring, you've pierced the corolla of a perfect blue flower
And stabbed it 'til the sapping veins could purple-nectar flow.
Oh for the beas now, the yellow ones on golden days
Springing resiliently from green stems of eternity, and the
Ever stretching sky. Oh for the little wandering
Creatures, the ants in the basins and courts of the earth!
Oh for the houses and the grass cracking sidewalks,
The scuff-kneed blacklings and resplendified beggars
Holding their dirt-bent, corroding cardboard signs and cups: my reveries!

Teachers of poetry, that is, sophists
Have dried them all up, stuck
A Straw into my skin, into bones, and suck
The red marrow, the blood-flowing marrow, and gnaw
On my good tasting bones. The strains of violins seeping
A little from ochred wood won't drown them out, and my breath
Is so exhausted and puckered my lips that I can't blow a horn,
A gigantic brass horn to draw out my cry so the wind
Could gather up the stirring ruby leaves and stir the embers
Into a consuming, turbulent flame, into a holocaust, and the world
Would be purified in the ringing breeze.