Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EROS, by AMY S. JENNINGS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EROS, by                    
First Line: I see in your eyes what you have seen
Last Line: And the ripples kissing her throat.
Subject(s): Cupid; Ducks; Eros; Mallards; Drakes


I see in your eyes what you have seen:
Laughter and wonder and dark wet trees
With the naked buds close clinging,
And a wind that races with swift bare knees
On the darkened earth and across the sheen
Rippled and roughened and cold and gray,
Shaken and trembling and clear and gray,
Of the lake and the wild duck winging.

I see in your eyes what you have seen:
One gray drake and another gray drake
And a young gray duck at the edge of the lake --
The cries and the splashing, the joy of the fight,
And the sudden rhythm of three in flight.
Low, high, in the cloudy sky.
Low, high, curve and dip!
She in the lead with taut neck steering,
This way, that way, turning, veering.
Low, high, curve and dip,
And the echo of the exultant note
That challenged her mate from her sure gray throat.

Deep in your eyes what you have seen!
The shaken water, the leafless trees,
And the long gray flight that swept between,
Gray as the clouds a March wind flings
From sky to sky, till above your head
They dipped, and a glory of purple spread,
A flashing oval of purple spread,
Like a sunlit sword, like a shout from the dead,
Like the naked pulse of a new born world,
Like a banner, suddenly unfurled
From the secret silver under their wings.

Low, high, curve and dip.
Gray, were they gray?
Suddenly into the lake they slip,
The one half-hearted backs away,
The other turns into the wind and flow.
Did she see, did she know?
Purple and silver are hidden away,
And he calls with a quiet protecting note,
While she swims behind with her head held low,
Ah, so chastened, so gray, so low,
Low, low,
And the ripples kissing her throat.





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