Book of Sketches Read Free Page A

this
earth — Thunder of
our ancestors, Blake,
Kingsley, Harris, —
thunder of our ancestors
rumbles in the unseen
sky — the wood walls
of the store have now
that tragic businesslike
look of hardships in
the old rain, use in
old wars, old necessities
— Now we see that
there were men who
wore raincoats & boots
& struggled here —
     
    & only left their ghosts,
& these few hardhip
houses, to sit in the
Saturday night rain.
How different from
the Saturday night of
the cities, the Chinatowns,
the harbors of the
world! — This silent
place haunted by
corn shapes, the
beauteous shrouds of
fields, the white leer
flash of lightning, the
stern tones of thunder
(the rattlebones of
bunder, the long buuk
braun roll of munder,
the far off hey - Call
of old poor sunder,)
— Ah South! of
which I read, as a
child, of coonskin caps,
Civil wars, piney woods,
brothers, dogs, morning
& new hope — Ah
South! Poor America!
The rain has been
falling a long time on
thee & on thy
history —
George hustles across
the road with a
bagful of his own
beer — a Grandet
of the Americas,
worse than Grandet!
he wears no miser’s
Puritan cap, or
gloves, but smoking
a harmless cigar —
     
    the bulb shines sad
& lonely on the old
wood porch of the
South — I see it —
In the loam of
the Blake yard sweet
rain has soaked
in greens & flowers
& the grass, & in
the mud, & sends
up fragrances of
the new clean
eternal Earth —
Inside the low
roofed homey rosy
lit Blake home, see
the little family
there, bearing Time
in a rainy hour
in the silence of themselves
Leaves thin-shadow on
the wall — on the
mottled redbrick base
foundation — on the
wet variant tangled
weeds & up-sway
grasses of the yard —
Rain glitters in
little bark-pools
of the tree-trunk
— sweet cool night
& washed up, heavy
hanging vegetation
— Lights of passing
cars dance in the
drip-drops of the
awning — Little Paul
muses at the sofa
window, turns &
yells — “Why is
it cause, Daddy, why
is it cause? ”

PANORAMIC CATALOG SKETCH OF BIG EASONBURG
    (backyard)
     
    From right 90° to left
rich brick house where kid
lives who rides pony thru tobacco
field, farmers say
“Come on, work in the barn”
& his father driving by says
“If you wanta work, that
barn is ready” & he gallops
away saying, “The hell
with work” & niggerfarmers
& pickaninnies in hotfield
chuckle & scratch heads —
Patrician little bitch he is —
his house has big TV antenna,
8 white gables, big
garage, swings, trucks,
Farmall tractor, white iron
lawnchairs, Bird houses
dog pens, clip’t shrubs, lawn,
basketball basket & pole,
— behind house we see
trees & pines of the forest
— a thin scraggle of corn
a 100 feet off — The
dreaming weedy meadow
— then the redroof outbuildings
of Andrews old
farm — with brick chimnies,
graywood built, ancient,
lost in trees which in clear
late afternoon make glady
black holes for the Sweeny
in the Trees dream of
children — distant rafts
of corn — then the tobacco
curing barn near a
stick ramp with piled
twigs or boughs & a redroof
porch, & a door, smoked,
at top,
tho still with old hay
     
    hook for when it once
was a barn (?) — there
too black holes of green
woods — A brand new
flu-cure barn with white tin
roof, new wood, unpainted,
no windows — Then another
old one — over the yellowing
topleaves of the tobacco
field — then the majestic
nest of Great Trees where
homestead sits — darkshaded,
hidden, mystical & ripplylit,
hints of red roofs,
old gray dark wood,
poles, old chimney, still,
peaceful, mute, with
shadows lengthening along
barnwalls — The trees:
fluffy roundshaped except
for stick tree in middle
forking ugly up, & on
right skeletal of underround
silhouetting dark
boughs against wall of
forest till round of umbrella
leaftop — Between here
& there I see the rigid
woodpole sticks out of
haystack, conical Stack,
with a cross stick, surrounded
by hedge of weeds, of
brown & gray gold hairy
texture in clear French
Impressionistic Sun