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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


CONTRA MORTEM: THE SUMMER by HAYDEN CARRUTH

Poet Analysis

First Line: CICADAS BLUR THE EAR AS THE BLUE HEAT HAZE
Last Line: UNITING ALL THIS KNOWLEDGE WITH THE EARTH
Subject(s): SUMMER;

Cicadas blur the ear as the blue heat haze
blurs the eye Fulfillment is a word
known to be lucky and hence not nice
or perhaps a shade absurd
Wise folk avoid it though they may speak of days
of changing tension Softly the hayfields rise
in the seedtime's changing browns and rusts
to the green mountain where the farthest crests
blur in purple boundaries like the child's
outreaching perceptions
and fall back in media gloria like the folds
of the woman's experience The redwings
the meadowlarks the treeswallows zoom in the warmth
small and sudden pleasant interconnections
uniting all this knowledge with the earth.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org



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