African Guardian of Souls,

A saint and master of the being-world.Conscience cannot exist in the first:The second cannot exist without conscience.Therefore he, who has enough conscienceTo be disturbed but not enough to beCompelled, can neither reject the oneNor follow the other…

Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,And let the valley carry it along.And let the valley carry it along.O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,So scant of grass, so proligate of pines,Now hust before an epoch’s sun declinesThy son, in time, I have returned to thee,Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.In…

To those fixed on black,It is the same,And red is red,Yellow, yellow-Surely there are such sightsIn the many colored world,Or in the mind.The strange thing is thatThese people never see themselvesOr you, or me.Are they not in their minds?Are we not in the world?This is a curious blindnessFor those that are color blind.What queer beliefsThat…

Eyes–fagots,Lips–old scars, or the first red blisters,Breath–the last sweet scent of cane,And her slim body, white as the ashof black flesh after flame.

And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow,Failed in its function as the autumn rake;Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to takeAll water from the streams; dead birds were foundIn wells a hundred feet below the ground–Such was the season when the flower bloomed.Old folks were startled, and…

And I hunger.I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it.I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry.I hunger.My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking stack’d fields of other harvesters.It would be good to see…