poem for spring...

and for YelloCello, who liked the plum poem:


A Negro Woman (William Carlos Williams)

carrying a bunch of marigolds
wrapped
in an old newspaper:
She carries them upright,
bareheaded,
the bulk
of her thighs
causing her to waddle
as she walks
looking into
the store window which she passes
on her way.
What is she
but an ambassador
from another world
a world of pretty marigolds
of two shades
which she announces
not knowing what she does
other
than walk the streets
holding the flowers upright
as a torch
so early in the morning.


Unfortunately Blogger won't let me reproduce the poem exactly the way it looks on the page, with the lines undulating in a back and forth movement.... they seem to be walking, each line a new footstep or few...

but you can still get a sence (or rather sense, since, scents) of it, and of why Williams is so often called an "imagist" poet, too.,





Marigolds for everyone! Happy spring.

poetrymonth