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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HANDS, by EARL (EARLE) BIRNEY Poet's Biography First Line: In the amber morning by the inlet's high shore Last Line: Our roots are in autumn, and store for no spring. Subject(s): Canoes & Canoeing; Hands | |||
In the amber morning by the inlet's high shore My canoe drifts and the slim trees come bending Arching the palms of their still green hands Juggling the shimmer of ripples. Too bewildering Even in the dead days of peace was this manumission, The leaves' illogical loveliness. Now am I frustrate, Alien. Here is the battle steeped in silence, The fallen have use and fragrantly nourish the quick. My species would wither, away from the radio's barkings, The headline beating its chimpanzee breast, the nimble Young digits at levers and triggers. Lithe are these balsam Fingers, gaunt as a Jew's in Poland, but green, Green, not of us, our colours are black and red. Cold and unskilled is the cedar, his webbed claws Drooping over the water shall focus no bombsight Nor suture the bayoneted bowel, his jade tips Alert but to seadew and air and the soundless touch Of the light winked by the wind from the breathing ocean, Inept to clutch the parachute cord, the uniformed Throat, the mud by the Thames in ebbing agony. These alders cupping their womanish palms, pulsing To the startled light when the long unpredictable swell Reaches from the grey heart of the far Pacific, Are not of my flesh. Their hands speak for Brutus, And signal sedition to the poet interned and the lover Suppressed; they render nought unto Caesar. My fingers Must close on the paddle. Back to the safe dead Wood of the docks, the whining poles of the city, And to hands the extension of tools, of the militant typewriter, The self-filling patriot pen, back to the paws Clasping warmly over the bomber contract, Applauding the succulent orators, back to the wrinkled Index weaving the virtuous sock, pointing the witch hunt, While the splayed fist thrusts at the heart of hereafter. We are gloved with steel, and a magnet is set us in Europe. We are not of these woods, we are not of these woods, Our roots are in autumn, and store for no spring. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY FATHER, MY HANDS by RICHARD BLANCO MY MOTHER'S HANDS by ANDREW HUDGINS I WAS BORN WITH TWELVE FINGERS by LUCILLE CLIFTON TEN OXHERDING PICTURES: A MEDITATION by LUCILLE CLIFTON FIFTH GRADE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by RITA DOVE THE TYPICAL HAND by ELENI SIKELIANOS THE CARPENTER by PRIMUS ST. JOHN ANGLOSAXON STREET by EARL (EARLE) BIRNEY |
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