January Morning

Suite:

I

I HAVE discovered that most of

the beauties of travel are due to

the strange hours we keep to see them:

the domes of the Church of

the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken

against a smoky dawn -- the heart stirred --

are beautiful as Saint Peters

approached after years of anticipation.

II

Though the operation was postponed

I saw the tall probationers

in their tan uniforms

              hurrying to breakfast!

III

-- and from basement entries

neatly coiffed, middle aged gentlemen

with orderly moustaches and

well-brushed coats

IV

-- and the sun, dipping into the avenues

streaking the tops of

the irregular red houselets,

             and

the gay shadows drooping and drooping.

V

-- and a young horse with a green bed-quilt

on his withers shaking his head:

bared teeth and nozzle high in the air!

VI

--and a semicircle of dirt-colored men

about a fire bursting from an old

ash can,

VII

-- and the worn,

blue car rails (like the sky!)

gleaming among the cobbles!

VIII

-- and the rickety ferry-boat "Arden"!

What an object to be called "Arden"

among the great piers, -- on the

ever new river!

     "Put me a Touchstone

at the wheel, white gulls, and we'll

follow the ghost of the Half Moon

to the North West Passage -- and through!

(at Albany!) for all that!"

IX

Exquisite brown waves -- long

circlets of silver moving over you!

enough with crumbling ice crusts among you!

The sky has come down to you,

lighter than tiny bubbles, face to

face with you!

    His spirit is

a white gull with delicate pink feet

and a snowy breast for you to

hold to your lips delicately!

X

The young doctor is dancing with happiness

in the sparkling wind, alone

at the prow of the ferry! He notices

the curdy barnacles and broken ice crusts

left at the slip's base by the low tide

and thinks of summer and green

shell-crusted ledges among

        the emerald eel-grass!

XI

Who knows the Palisades as I do

knows the river breaks east from them

above the city -- but they continue south

-- under the sky -- to bear a crest of

little peering houses that brighten

with dawn behind the moody

water-loving giants of Manhattan.

XII

Long yellow rushes bending

above the white snow patches;

purple and gold ribbon

of the distant wood:

   what an angle

you make with each other as

you lie there in contemplation.

XIII

Work hard all your young days

and they'll find you too, some morning

staring up under

your chiffonier at its warped

bass-wood bottom and your soul --

out!

-- among the little sparrows

behind the shutter.

XIV

-- and the flapping flags are at

half-mast for the dead admiral.

XV

All this --

was for you, old woman.

I wanted to write a poem

that you would understand.

For what good is it to me

if you can't understand it?

   But you got to try hard --

But --

      Well, you know how

the young girls run giggling

on Park Avenue after dark

when they ought to be home in bed?

Well,

that's the way it is with me somehow.

William Carlos Williams

Index to poems in the collection by William Carlos Williams

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