Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A CALIFORNIA IDYL, by ERNEST MCGAFFEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A CALIFORNIA IDYL, by                    
First Line: A road-runner dodged through the chaparral
Last Line: And dashed his beak through the rattlesnake.
Subject(s): California; Roadrunners; Geococcyx Californianus


A road-runner dodged through the chaparral,
As a coin will slip through the hand of a wizard,
A black wasp droned by his sun-baked cell,
While flat on his stone lay a sun-baked lizard.
A shy quail lowered his crested head
'Neath the rock-lined sweep of a dry creek-bed.

A sage hen scratched 'neath a cactus spike,
While high in the sky was the noon-sun's glamor;
And, ready as ever rose anvil strike,
Came the rat-tat-tat of a yellowhammer.
A wolf in the cleft of a sycamore,
Sat gray as a monk at his Mission door.

Out of the earth a tarantula crept
On its hairy legs, to the road's white level,
With eyes where a demon's malice slept,
And the general air of a devil;
And a rattlesnake by the dusty trail
Lay coiled in a mat of mottled scale.

The wolf down sprang on the sage hen there,
The lizard snapped at the wasp and caught him.
The spider fled to his sheltering lair
As if a shadowy foeman sought him;
The road-runner slipped through the roadside brake
And dashed his beak through the rattlesnake.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net