Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, by JAMES RORTY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If I should hasten or cry out
Last Line: See, I bring you gifts of silence, and cool snows.
Subject(s): Deserts; Food & Eating; Landscape; Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


If I should hasten or cry out,
I would not see the aspens whipping on the rim
Of the red butte to the north;
I would not hear
The rainy march of the wind that breathes
A deeper shadow on the corn.

So . . . . let me no less delicately plant
My footsteps on this desert earth
Than the prim quail that leads her grave procession through the sage,
Or the gray rabbit, pausing lop-eared and alert,
Scenting the rain.

Remembering the Mountains

Remembering the mountains, I was still.
Will you be quiet, my friends -- will you gather close, you who strive so hard
to do, and do?
See, I bring you gifts of silence, and cool snows.
I tell you of tall pines, erect and motionless, pointing at the sky.
I deal treacherously with your desires. I bleach your hearts.
I confront your troubled faces with the old faces of the rocks.
I give your strained ears only silence, and the zoom of the night-hawk.
I take the greed of the merchant, the pride of the soldier, the terror of the
driven worker, and drop them one by one into the lake.
Will you be quiet, my friends -- will you gather close, you who strive so hard
to do, and do?
See, I bring you gifts of silence, and cool snows.





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