34
TAMARACK BLUE
Upon the wintergreen and left it bruisedAnd dripping—these were very clean and cool.And I was glad for the wild plums crimsoningAmong the leaves, and for the frail blue millersGlinting above them—chips of a splintered sky;Glad for the blossoming alfalfa fieldsRobust with wining sap, and the asters bobbingAnd chuckling at the whimsies of the breeze;Glad for the far jang-jangling cattle-bellsThat intimated a land of deep wet grassAnd lazy water, a world of no distress,No pain, no sorrow, a valley of contentment.
Until I came upon a mullein stalk,Withered and bended almost to the groundBeneath the weight of a raucous purple grackle,A weed so scrawny of twig, so gnarled, so old,That when I flung a pebble at the birdHeavy upon the bough, the mullein failedTo spring its ragged blades from earth again—The suppleness of life had gone from it;Something in this distressed me, haunted me.Something in mullein, stricken, drooping, doomed—When I can hear the rustle of a ghost
