Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN HOUR OF IDLENESS; IN THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, by MARION CUMMINGS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN HOUR OF IDLENESS; IN THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, by                    
First Line: To lie here prone, wholly at rest
Last Line: (I know the lore of fairies) on fern seed.
Subject(s): Nature; Santa Cruz Mountains, California


To lie here prone, wholly at rest
On Earth's warm mother breast,
So close you almost hear the rhythmic beat,
So close you almost feel the stir and start
Of life's full tide that pulses from her heart.
Is it not sweet?

Rest for the weary feet that long have trod
Far from the living sod,
Rest for the weary brain
With life's insistent problems ever vexed,
And ah, surcease thrice blest
For the tired heart, faint with life's overstrain—
Rest.

Just to lie quietly and half adream
Without a thought or care,
To listen drowsily,
To view with half-shut eye
The painted wood enshadowed or agleam.
Only to lie and lie
Steeped in the golden hush of afternoon,
Lapped thus deliciously
In lotus languors sweet
And soft caressing calms.

I hear a little stream far-hidden, croon
As to itself low lapsing lullabies.
Sudden a wandering wind runs lightly by;
The gnarled white-oak waves her wrinkled palms,
The laurel thicket whispers low surprise,
The pine tree sighs and drops her odorous balms,
The murmurous redwoods call
From hill to hill.
Madrona bright replies,
A moment shakes her coral boughs, then all
Her broad green garments rustle and are still.

Silence; and there on yonder tree
A frisky squirrel just about to sup
Stands statue still, a slender acorn cup
In one brown hand; and now
A flurry of falling leaves, and suddenly
A blue-jay drops upon a near-by bough,
Flaunts his fine crest, and cocks his beady eye,
Flirts his long tail and chides
With raucous throat;
While chipmunk, frisking nigh,
Stops and derides
In shrill staccato note.

And now again—oh, softly breathe!—I see
Across yon leafy path that winds the wood,
A shy, brown mother quail come forth to lead
Her pretty brood.
Alas, the alien meets her startled ken,
And lo, in an eye's twinkling every one
Has disappeared, has gone,
Has turned a crumpled leaf. All's still again.
Aha, my woodland babes, I see you feed
(I know the lore of fairies) on fern seed.





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