'PE R SPE CT I VE S
Page Pine
'PERSPECTI VES Page Five
FALL PLOWING
Now must I till again the fallow field
After an idle year. For I have learned
No rest renews the green where grass has burned
Or solaces a wound which should have healed.
After the empty year this land should yield
A more abundant harvest than before:
The earth is fertile, and because it bore
No fruit in this past year, its mould is filled
With essences of life. The idle year
Goes unregretted, and the unsown grain
Will come to life in later threshings here.
The crop which is to be assuages pain;
The grain which should have been, but was
not sown,
Will call the richer harvest part its own.
-Marguerite Graham
CHARLESTON HARBOUR
The docks of Charleston, a hazy crimson in August
twilight.
Negro voices lingering softly in the evening air.
A melodious softness which seems a very part of the
summer dusk.
In perfect harmony. Voices -
From the cobblestones to the magnolias . .
The dock worker swings homeward, feet shuffling
over worn cobblestone;
The scent of magnolia mingles with the odor of
sweat-saturated blue jean -
Blue jean which spreads across broad backs and
rippling black shoulders ...
While dark waters filter in and out, lapping silent
wharves,
Night finds the cobblestones, the melody and the
magnolias.
And the sweat of day lingers
on Charleston docks.
-Charles Doughtie
CONFIRMED DATA
DETAILED FOR THE LAYMAN
On the quiet nights
Subdued by clouds,
The mist figures, umbrellaed
'gainst the element of rain,
essay my door.
Their feet, measured to the
Cobbles of my path, impression
The spread of darkness
Within, munching of the aged clan,
Sympathetic tread of mind,
Observes the pane of day.
Without, the brown-barked trees,
dull-haired with sibilent whisperings
Leaf the ephemeral countenance at night
And share with raucous crow
The periphery at dawn.
-F. A. P.
NO MORE A LOVELY VISION
No more a lovely vision do I see.
I rend the silent night with frantic cries,
I spin the shining crystal endlessly,
But now no splendid vision meets my eyes.
A ringing chorus, now unheard, I wait,
And agrily I shed my salty tears;
But though I early send my prayers and late,
No mighty music falls upon my ears.
The dreams that once I dreamed are dim with rust;
My sobs rear high upon the evening air-
I haunt the house where beauty sleeps in dust,
But find no more a lovely vision there.
I am the banished soul, who, screaming, tries
For one more happy glimpse of paradise.
-Syvlia Huxtable
VISION -1941
Beyond the staves of individual hours,
Here was this city lying at our feet-
Those ancient citadels, those climbing.towers,
Timeless and blessed,,and the great, swift peace
That came up to this hill by the great wind,
And rose up to a life and you and I
The tiny hours that marked our breathing's depth
and breadth and frequency
Fell sudden at the gust of one wind's breath
As far below we watched for Time's slow mind
To analyse and sudden to explain.
But Time stood still, unanswering and unanswered
And your own low voice faded into nothing
And I reached for your hand, but could not find you.
And the red lightning split the little clouds
And a quick thunder came out of the earth
And broke the little towers of timelessness
And broke the little citadels of timelessness
And broke the little temples of benediction
Wih a power that even was like love
As sudden and unwaiting.
Since, I have called swift wind voices after you,
But you did not answer.
And I have gone down the hill and up the hill
And down the hill and up the hill again
But could not find you.
Only I and the wind are left now on this slope
And all around the broken citadels
The wind goes out to call upon your name,
But you do not answer.
And all that ever loved are silent now
And all that ancient glory turned to dust.
-Dorothy Farnan
BLACK GANG
Piston thrust on steel chocks
Driving forward through green foam
In an ecstacy of rhythm
Singing with the power hum
Of oil on steel
And sliding easily on the
Blood
of
the
rhythm
makers ....
-Bill Robbins