Daisy

Listen to:

Daisy (1:13)

by William Carlos Williams

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

DAISY

  The days eye hugging the earth
  in August, ha! Spring is
  gone down in purple,
  weeds stand high in the corn,
  the rainbeaten furrow
  is clotted with sorrel
  and crabgrass, the
  branch is black under
  the heavy mass of the leaves--
  The sun is upon a
  slender green stem
  ribbed lengthwise.
  He lies on his back--
  it is a woman also--
  he regards his former
  majesty and
  round the yellow center,
  split and creviced and done into
  minute flowerheads, he sends out
  his twenty rays--a little
  and the wind is among them
  to grow cool there!

  One turns the thing over
  in his hand and looks
  at it from the rear: brownedged,
  green and pointed scales
  armor his yellow.
  But turn and turn,
  the crisp petals remain
  brief, translucent, greenfastened,
  barely touching at the edges:
  blades of limpid seashell.