29

There are cotton shocks at the tips
Of the reeds that seem to smoke
As the wind catches and draws up
Their tasseled edges and the trailing
Edge lolling into the green water
Seems the crest of a water breaking
Over rocks at a fall and the reed
Imbibing the rainfall at its root
Seems irresistibly to turn down
Its head into the pool making a
White plumed collar of its down spray

And beyond this wet cycling-in
A purple flower fires up out of the
Thickest richest scum of algae its arc
Described by the stem the parabola
Marked at origin by a wreath of
Particoloured white-green leaves,
Dust of this first inhuman salvo
And the light of the iris bloom is
Broken as it lances up by the sandstone
That lies behind it and we see in it
The limit of our own amphitheatre
And its crushed colour and spray of sex
Are but the dash of water over rock.