Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ADOLESCENCE, by LEROY OLIVER MCLEOD First Line: White morning, like a frosted window-pane Last Line: Was dark with secrets as the depths below. Subject(s): Adolescence; Growth; Maturity; Time; Youth; Teen Agers | ||||||||
I White morning, like a frosted window-pane, Pressed numb the rosy rondure of your face. A diamond dazzle pricked into your brain Through eyes like frozen crystals . . . Still your pace, Undaunted, scissored through the brittle cold to reach the lone-trod footprints of a man. Over the silvered snow -- though spent and old -- Their haste became a lead-rope as you ran. Iced as the ragweeds now, you stand aside, And look where, hushed in feathered fall, were pressed The accents of that unreturning stride . . . Shivering, you peer behind -- as if you guessed What it might be that lures man's onward track So urgently beyond its coming back. II Like iridescence blown, now here, now there, Were your perceptions; and they veered and flew Unmindful of the body borne on air Till this cold wind of change bedraggled you. Then strangely troubled at the larger weight, In Time's bleared April pool you peered, and found How rude flesh held you, and fled desperate, Shamed by a wall of mirrors round and round. Still must you seek to flee this nakedness -- As a caught wildling covers trap and chain; That strides out boldly, and in sharp distress Is jerked and thrown, and frantic tries in vain Yet more . . . and cowers at last to wait in dread, Mocked by the jays in old boughs overhead. III Not like the rounding wave a stone has made, Rousing from hidden deeps a hoarsened sound; Nor like the faint stir when a leaf, all browned, Is by a breeze on cool smooth water laid; Nor like pool dimples when it rains at last; Nor like the little wake so quick to follow The swift kiss of a mirrored evening swallow, -- Was the strange smile that moved your face . . . and passed. Mirthless it was, in one stark moment seen; More like an upsurge on a somber pond When, down beneath, a shape we never know, Flounders and dives in haste to denser green. And all the while your unlit gaze beyond Was dark with secrets as the depths below. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN by DORIANNE LAUX PORTRAIT OF A GIRL WITH COMIC BOOK by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY THE ONE GIRL AT THE BOYS PARTY by SHARON OLDS CHERRYLOG ROAD by JAMES DICKEY BROTHER AND SISTER by MARY ANN EVANS ADOLESCENCE by MAVIS CLARE BARNETT THE WILD DUCK by LEROY OLIVER MCLEOD |
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