The calloused grass lies hard
Against the cracking plain:
Life is a grayish stain;
The salt-marsh hems my yard.
Dry dikes rise hill on hill;
In sloughs of tidal slime
Shellfish deposit lime,
Wild seafowl creep at will.
The highway, like a beach,
Turns whiter, shadowy, dry:
Loud, pale against the sky,
The bombing planes hold speech.
Yet fruit grows on the trees;
Here scholars pause to speak;
Through gardens bare and Greek
I hear my neighbor’s bees.
(Yvor Winters)
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Based on Topics: Life Poems, Nature Poems, Speaking Poems, Speech PoemsBased on Keywords: deposit, sloughs, bombing, grayish, dikes, shellfish, salt-marsh