Cactus Flower

A darker song reaches skin and bone, On panel streets fading steely gray, Long and far, I fear you are gone. Dark clouds are melting in time, Touching the days of humid spring, A heat-wave dancing too far within. The mirror speaks, “You are now alone!” While asleep you cast a fated twin. Careless to say this is not forever, Under the night, eyes stretch like leather. Missing you now, my breath goes astray, You beckon me here to capture the fray, Only to see you gone from my view, With less than hope, I go my own way. Lizette Woodworth Reese Spicewood The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind, That whips it all before, and behind, Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high, It is the first, homeliest thing of all-- At the sight of it, that lad that by it fares, Whistles afresh his foolish town-caught aires-- A thing so honey-colored, and so tall! It is as though the young-Year ere he pass, To the white riot of the cherry tree, Would fain accustom us, or here, or there, To his new sudden ways with bough and grass. So starts with what is humble, plain to see, And all familiar as a cup, a chair.