Robert Penn Warren Quote

Season late, day late, sun just down, and the skyCold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she,From water the color of sky except whereHer motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver,Rises. Stands on the raw grass. AgainstThe new-curdling night of spruces, nakednessGlimmers and, at bosom and flank, dripsWith fluent silver. The man, Some ten strokes out, but now hangingMotionless in the gunmetal water, feetCold with the coldness of depth, allHistory dissolving from him, isNothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees The body that is marked by his use, and Time's,Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air,Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. SeesHow, with that posture of female awkwardness that is,And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down inThe pure curve of their weight and buttocksMoon up and, in swelling unity,Are silver and glimmer. Then The body is erect, she is herself, whateverSelf she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand,Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, butWith face lifted toward the high sky, whereThe over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no starYet throbs there. The towel, forgotten,Does not move now. The gazeRemains fixed on the sky. The body, Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seemsTo draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what lightIn the sky yet lingers or, fromThe metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body,With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, isA white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky.This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admitsOf no definition, for itSubsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by whichDefinition might be possible. The woman, Face yet raised, wraps,With a motion as though standing in sleep,The towel about her body, under her breasts, and,Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect,Moves up the path that, stair-steep, windsInto the clamber and tangle of growth. BeyondThe lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whitenessDimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man, Suspended in his darkling medium, staresUpward where, though not visible, he knowsShe moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if onlyHe had such strength, he would put his hand forthAnd maintain it over her to guard, in allHer out-goings and in-comings, from whateverInclemency of sky or slur of the world's weatherMight ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he seesThe first star pulse into being. It gleams there.