Cane/Georgia Dusk

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue

The setting sun, too indolent to hold

A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,

Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,

An orgy for some genius of the South

With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,

Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.

The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,

And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,

Soft settling pollen where plowed lands

Their early promise of a bumper crop.

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile

Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low

Where only chips and stumps are left to show

The solid proof of former domicile.

Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,

Race memories of king and caravan,

High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,

Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp.

Their voices rise ... the pine trees are guitars,

Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain...

Their voices rise ... the chorus of the cane

Is caroling a vesper to the stars...

O singers, resinous and soft your songs

Above the sacred whisper of the pines,

Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,

Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.