Friday, June 18, 2010

William Carlos Williams: Summer Song


Photo - Life Magazine


As they said in the old day's, "sumer is icumen" and so this little number, courtesy of the Poem-A-Day website, seems most appropriate:


Summer Song
Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?
William Carlos Williams




And, of course, if you're over 80 (or saw the movie Rushmore), it's hard not to free associate the Williams title with this little ditty:









summer night--
the moon by the river
just a sliver
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue





best,
Don

5 comments:

Ed Baker said...

Wanderer moon
smiling

I LIKE THAT! while
in my mind 10,000
'full moon' shorties
... simultaneously

Williams another poet/essayist everyboddhi knows (of) and few are his every-word-readers

I wonder: he and Henry Miller friends?

full moon
wandering
among stars

Charles Gramlich said...

Summer thinks it's already king down here.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Ed, glad you liked ...

Summer has arrived, Charles, which what prompted the post - 90 here in the Burg here tomorrow.

batsick said...

Summer IS king where I am. The sun's beating WELL down upon us, and nothing can save us except the salvation of the shade and fans.

I never heard of a poem called Wanderer Moon, but hey, I like it!

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Thanks, Shigune