Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RANCHO LA BREA, by ROY WALTER JAMES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RANCHO LA BREA, by                    
First Line: The air slips through the pepper boughs
Last Line: She quickly covers death and sings of life.
Subject(s): La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles


The air slips through the pepper boughs:
The dangling eucalyptus leaves, high up
Above, sway joyously on slender stems:
Gay shining blackbirds swarm among the trees,
Filling the morning air with gleeful sound:
Shrinking shadows creep along the grass
Toward the tree-trunks, clutching at the earth
Beneath their mighty limbs.

I look in vain
Across the undulating ground in green
All carpeted, for some weird sign or sight
That would suggest the ancient tragedy.
Without reward I look across the reedy pond
Where redwings swing, for some grey spectral form
That might suggest the terrifying woe
Which was expressed in howl, pathetic wail,
Or bellowing, when prehistoric beasts
Died here a quarter million years ago.
For, knowing as I do of old black bones
That are preserved in asphalt buried there
Beneath the sod beyond that clump of trees,
Vainly I seek some phantom of the past
To symbolize past woe; but all is joy.

Long thread-like clouds sweep over the mountain tops:
An airplane drones in wheeling speedy flight,
And autos whiz along the boulevard.
Blue oily bubbles sparkle on the pond,
Reflecting rainbow colors from the sky:
Gay red-wings flit from reed to reed and swing:
A meadow lark calls clear across the grass:
The blackbirds flitter, singing joyous songs.
The air slips softly by me thru the trees:
No sign of ancient woe and death is here.

Now all at once my spirit is bowed low
And overwhelmed to see how Nature sings,
But sings of life—how Nature speaks, but not
Of great past woe—how Nature, blithe, knows well
Of death throughout the Universe, but fails
To let us know, except as we may seek
And find. She will not tell. Without regret
She quickly covers death and sings of life.





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