STEWART MITCHELL
161
Speak well of springs,
Smear with damp hands of comment
All fragile, fleet things.
Plumed crests of pampas grass
Caution me dearly
How days pass:
Wake me to yearly
Recollections of lilies—
Tall hedges of callas
For walls of my world.
Fingers toughen
Tinkering with steel-cold words—
Thought casts lonely
Long shadows
In these pine-sweet lands.
I chafe at chattering birds—
Grow covetous only
Of certain deft
Fond hands.
