Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NUN SNOW, by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG Poet's Biography First Line: Is she / thoughtless of life Last Line: Dropping the curtain so soon! Subject(s): Earth; Moon; World | ||||||||
Earth Voice Is she thoughtless of life, a lover of imminent death, Nun Snow touching her strings of white beads? Is it her unseen hands which urge the beads to tremble? Does Nun Snow, aware of the death she must die alone, away from the nuns of the green beads, of the ochre and brown, of the purple and black -- does she improvise along those soundless strings in the worldly hope that the answering, friendly tune, the faithful, folk-like miracle, will shine in a moment or two? Moon Voice Or peradventure, are the beads merely wayward, on an evening so soft, and One Wind is so gentle a mesmerist as he draws them and her with his hand? Earth Voice Was it Full Moon, who contrives tales of this order, and himself loves the heroine, Nun Snow -- Wind Voice Do you see his beads courting hers? lascivious monk! -- Earth Voice Was it Full Moon, slyly innocent of guile, propounder of sorrowless whimseys, who breathed that suspicion? Is it One Wind, the wily, scholarly pedant -- is it he who retorts -- Wind Voice Like olden allegros in olden sonatas, all tales have two themes, she is beautiful he is beautiful, with the traditional movement, their beads court each other, revealing a cadence as fatally true as the sum which follows a one-plus-one -- so, why inquire further? Nay, inquire further, deduce it your fashion! Nun Snow, as you say, touches her strings of white beads, Full Moon, let you add, his lute of yellow strings; and, Our Night is square, nay, Our Night is round, nay, Our Night is a blue balcony -- and therewith close your inquisition! Earth Voice Who urged the beads to tremble? They're still now! Fallen, or cast over me! Nun, Moon and Wind are gone! Are they betraying her? -- Moon Voice Ask Our Night -- Earth Voice Did the miracle appear? -- Moon Voice Ask Our Night, merely a child on a balcony, letting down her hair and black beads, a glissando -- ask her what she means, dropping the curtain so soon! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BROKEN BALANCE by ROBINSON JEFFERS SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS GEOMETAPHYSICS by MARGARET AVISON NIAGARA by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS SOPHISTICATION by CONRAD AIKEN I SEE CHILE IN MY REARVIEW MIRROR by AGHA SHAHID ALI WASHING OUR HANDS OF THE REST OF AMERICA by MARVIN BELL THE EARTH IS A LIVING THING by LUCILLE CLIFTON FESTOONS OF FISHES by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG PEEWEE by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG ..... AND WHITE THE WHITE INVOKES by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG |
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