Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Song For a Dancer -- Kenneth Rexroth

I dream my love goes riding out
Upon a coal black mare.
A cloud of dark all about
Her--her floating hair.

She wears a short green velvet coat.
Her blouse is of red silk,
Open to her swan like throat,
Her breasts white as milk.

Her skirt is of green velvet, too,
And shows her silken thigh,
Purple leather for her shoe,
dark as her blue eye.

From her saddle grows a rose.
She rides in scented shade.
Silver birds sing as she goes
This song that she made:

"My father was a nightingale,
My mother a mermaid.
Honeyed notes that never fail
Upon my lips they laid."