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Paul
Reps (1895-1990)
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Power To You – Poems Everyone Can Make
Preview Publications,
Montrose, California, 1939, [6] 22 pp.
Waveswaveswaves
and deep below
none comenone go.
_____________________________Last year's Notice-To-Destroy-Weeds sign
almost overrun with
phlox and columbine.
_____________________________The ant
so roughly brushed aside
still clinging to my fingers!
_____________________________World, through my door, how wide!
House, how tiny
from outside!
____________________________First budlo!
Muddy river stirs
and wild geese winging go.
________________________________Little white morning-flowers
travelling
along a forgotten road.
____________________________The pine
drinking luminous dew
as if nothing had happened.
____________________________Standing
in cool dew
I look at the cloudless sky.
____________________________This way, O bee,
Here is no
transparent boundary.
____________________________Preposterous thing!
Peering into finch's nest
in spring.
____________________________First rain! Rivulet-in-the-lane
sedge-scrub-moss-and I
young again!
____________________________From clean cool architecture
gushes
a stream of youth.
____________________________Wind-filled washing
fraternally dancing on a line
why, it's mine!
____________________________April! Footloose, alive
O do not hasten, friend,
lest you arrive.
____________________________Suddenly fledglings'
open mouths
swallow the sky.
____________________________Thrush improvising
on telephone wire
all innocent of message within.
____________________________Turning from left to right
awakening this May morning
what unbelievable delight!
____________________________Might have been
morning-glory-vine
rabbit child nibbled before sun-up.
____________________________One thrush cries.
How certainly
one thrush replies.
____________________________Earthworm, lover of roots
though cut in two
returning.
____________________________Flowerman's hands
wrapping sweet-peas
in capitalistic newspaper.
____________________________"Man: Get in here and grow
know what it means
saying Potato."
____________________________Cat crouchesbirds soar
bamboos scrape
never-ending world-war.
____________________________The garden grows
intensely a gardener
pushes water from a hose.
____________________________Forth, O unforgetting seed!
Grant us anew
our bread and beauty need.
____________________________Shell-torn no longer.
Ocean of clover
clouds floating over.
____________________________Under a willow
benevolently still we lie.
Which way, untroubled butterfly?
____________________________Blockhead!
Pointing at the moon
when asked the way to town.
____________________________How the dust flies!
Shaking my mop
into the sunset.
____________________________Come stand with me
under my summer shower
healed of world-madness.
____________________________Loafing in sun
eating grass
not so poor.
____________________________Little desert flower
fed by whatever steam-of-love
this your hour.
____________________________Bed on ground
in oak above
nightbirds' pulsing tones of love.
____________________________Cardboard boat
blue glass lake
no fish bite.
____________________________In-breath ... out breath
intervowen
ah, this toy world.
____________________________Factory whistle screeching
this thousand-eyed body
sits in the tall grass.
____________________________Dumbly I stand before
cattle-eyes hopefully questioning
through box-car slats.
____________________________Grimy urchins
whooping
through empty tunnel-way.
____________________________Upon garbage truck heaped high
top-hat with corsage
passes by.
____________________________Knots in minds untied
when city faces
see the banker slip.
____________________________Passing in the hot street
once and forever
weknowingsmile.
____________________________All day
with the bamboo
by the house.
____________________________Sitting on a tack
I am instantly
center of the universe!
____________________________Tirelessly crumbling rocks an crags,
sea discovers
children's sand-castle.
____________________________Half-drowned sand-sodden bee
whirring in frenzy
crawls towards the sea
____________________________Sand, sundown, sea
nobody's dog
watches with me.
____________________________Time too
shall haul me in,
gasping sturgeon.
____________________________Laughing people gathering flowers for seeds
Lone girl
grubbing weeds.
____________________________Blossoms and laurel leaves
press against a window
where I sit alone.
____________________________Pebbles for money, twigs for weapons
maple-leaves for books
children's voices.
____________________________Bustling village fading
into twilight
two feet clopping over a hill.
____________________________As humbly as I can
through mist
passing the courtesan.
____________________________Peering into Grand Canyon
from the plane
a shoestring broke.
____________________________Motionless on a rock
squirrel in bright wonder
measuring surveyor.
____________________________Red apple
toppling rung by rung
down the garden ladder.
____________________________Call-it-maple
yet our calling
stays not an amber leaf from falling.
____________________________Frayed rug in the dust
ah, floating tapestry
of last night's moon.
____________________________Bonds-that-we-shall-never-see
Between the gnarled fig tree
and me.
____________________________Hobo sketching
wistfully
on upturned grocery box.
____________________________Forgotten housetrue
its tattered roof
lets sun and starlight through.
____________________________Ticking, ticking away
at starlight
that watch and me.
____________________________Uprooted tree
wrenched by what hand
from the living land.
____________________________Work-weary hands, questioning eyes
whoever you are
you are my mother too.
____________________________Bundle of patched rags
and a staff
dragging along cold highway.
____________________________Flags of many nations
twisting
in the unseen gale.
____________________________While away from home
it seemed I must have dreamed
such a dear place.
____________________________Wanderlusting tumbleweed
lodged before our door
at nightfall.
____________________________Again and again
that fellow's web
over the cellar-door keyhole.
____________________________Big cloud tips
roofing-nail protrudes
whole ceiling drips.
____________________________Kite on a string
airplane
evening star.
____________________________Squabbling wrens,
isn't there room enough
in this world?
____________________________This instant
knife-of-life, knife-of-death
strike, surgeon, now.
____________________________On the morgue's cold slab
no flowers
somebody's mother.
____________________________Twilight hush
earth feels the weight
of even one more leaf.
____________________________Wind of evening
lo, the acorn
succeeds in letting go.
____________________________Kneeling this moonless night
remembering
my first parent.
____________________________Great grey sea
far offshore
lone man's tiny boat.
____________________________Falling snow
bends pine so low
O benediction of moving stillness.
____________________________Two identical then chaos
this white night
of drifting flakes.
____________________________Snow man
snow woman
melting away in the sun.
____________________________Through dense fog
little figure faintly outlined
on schoolhouse steps.
____________________________Ragman translating
those old papers into pulp
my poem!
____________________________Stars and sequoias
surely poised
and we, wandering.
____________________________I never have believed
that February telegram
telling my teacher's departure.
____________________________Bubbling ice-edged spring
neither can words
measure our heart's tide.
____________________________Unhesitating into the billion-year-old atmosphere
of human hopes
I sneeze
____________________________Last leaf tumbling by
boldly the oak sprawls
calligraphy on sky.
____________________________Birds caroling
step by stepclimbing the mountain path
before twilight.
