The Late Singer, The Desolate Field

Listen to:

The Late Singer, The Desolate Field (1:09)

by William Carlos Williams

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

THE LATE SINGER

  Here it is spring again

  and I still a young man!

  I am late at my singing.

  The sparrow with the black rain on his breast

  has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past:

  What is it that is dragging at my heart?

  The grass by the back door

  is stiff with sap.

  The old maples are opening

  their branches of brown and yellow moth-flowers.

  A moon hangs in the blue

  in the early afternoons over the marshes.

  I am late at my singing.

THE DESOLATE FIELD

  Vast and grey, the sky

  is a simulacrum

  to all but him whose days

  are vast and grey, and--

  In the tall, dried grasses

  a goat stirs

  with nozzle searching the ground.

  --my head is in the air

  but who am I...?

  And amazed my heart leaps

  at the thought of love

  vast and grey

  yearning silently over me.