free-verse36 lines
The Window
by Conrad Potter AikenShe looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world
She leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees
She leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird on a perch
and they scoop the blue sky
She and the window scooping
the morning as if it were air
scooping a green wave of leaves
above a stone stair
And an urn hung with leaden garlands
and girls holding hands in a ring
and raindrops on an iron railing
shining like a harp string
An old man draws with his ferrule
in wet sand a map of Spain
the marble soldier on his pedestal
draws a stiff diagram of pain
But the walls around her tremble
with the speed of the earth the floor
curves to the terrestrial center
and behind her the door
Opens darkly down to the beginning
far down to the first simple cry
and the animal waking in water
and the opening of the eye
She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world.