Poems (Scudder)/Nasturtiums
NASTURTIUMS
Poised on your sallow tendrils You witchlike, arrogant blossoms, You stare from your glass-walled prison, Alluringly insolent.
Your smooth green leaves are rounded Like the leaves of water-lilies—But yours is no naive, tender Nymphean loveliness.
Like a blare of fairy trumpets You shake and shatter the silence With a delicate fury of color, With scarlet, yellow, maroon.
Perhaps you are elfin rockets All flaring in celebration Of some cruel triumph, unfurling Crisp petals of gauzy flame.