"Ants on the Melon"

Another book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for a long time and proved to be far more accessible than I expected. Virginia Hamilton Adair is an alum.

'The Grandmothers'
I hear her cries/ of laughter as her blacksleeved arms /
hold the hotcakes aloft / among the dip and swirl of brilliant wings.

'Railway Tempo'
For we, the here and how, command
Collapse to follow our fierce speed,
And only the final town to stand

'Musical Moment'
Always the caravan of sound made us halt
to admire the swinging and the swift go-by
of beasts with enormous hooves and heads
beating the earth or reared against the sky.

Do not reread, I mean glance ahead to see
what has become of the colossal forms:
everything happened at the instant of passing:
the hoof-beat, the whinny, the bells on the harness,
the creak of the wheels, the monkey’s fandango
in double time over the elephant’s back.

'Buckroe, After the Season, 1942'
We pushed into an overworld of wind and light
Where sky unfettered ran wild from earth to noon,
And the tethered heart broke loose and rose like a kite
From sands that borrowed diamonds from the sun.