Primrose

Listen to:

Primrose (1:13)

by William Carlos Williams

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

PRIMROSE


  Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!
  It is not a color.
  It is summer!
  It is the wind on a willow,
  the lap of waves, the shadow
  under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
  three herons, a dead hawk
  rotting on a pole--
  Clear yellow!
  It is a piece of blue paper
  in the grass or a threecluster of
  green walnuts swaying, children
  playing croquet or one boy
  fishing, a man
  swinging his pink fists
  as he walks--
  It is ladysthumb, forgetmenots        
  in the ditch, moss under
  the flange of the car rail, the
  wavy lines in split rock, a
  great oaktree--
  It is a disinclination to be
  five red petals or a rose, it is
  a cluster of birdsbreast flowers
  on a red stem six feet high,
  four open yellow petals
  above sepals curled
  backward into reverse spikes--
  Tufts of purple grass spot the
  green meadow and clouds the sky.