SEVEN POEMS
BY DUDLEY POORE
I
For you, Conquerors,
inexhaustible dark,
glory of rotting silk,
immortality of tinfoil garlands.
For you pompous bronze
in littered city squares
and homage of untidy sparrows.
For us the sun,
for us dusty roads of the South
between cactus and vine,
roads that scramble and pant
up through the gorse, through the fern
to the keen still peaks,
then vanish over the pass,
waving us after through silent uplands
fragrant with mint and snow,
winding forever onward
through the placid sunlight of mellow afternoons
drowsy with drone of bees,
through the smoky gold
of evenings that pattern the valley
with amber of sunset rivers,
through nights of honeyed moons and festooned constellations
to find at the day's end
welcome of lighted inns,
warmth of dark wine,
