Amy Lowell

from Twenty-Four Hokku on a Modern Theme (1921)

I
Again the larkspur,
Heavenly blue in my garden.
They, at least, unchanged.

II
How have I hurt you?
You look at me with pale eyes,
But these are my tears.

III
Morning and evening—
Yet for us once long ago
Was no division.

V
In the ghostly dawn
I write words for your ears—
Even now you sleep.

VI
This then is morning.
Have you no comfort for me
Cold-coloured flowers?

VIII
When the flower falls
The leaf is no more cherished.
Every day I fear.

X
Laugh—it is nothing.
To others you may seem gay,
I watch with grieved eyes.

XIII
Watching the iris,
The faint and fragile petals—
How am I worthy?

XV
Night lies beside me
Chaste and cold as a sharp sword.
It and I alone.

XVI
Last night it rained.
Now, in the desolate dawn,
Crying of blue jays.

XVII
Foolish so to grieve,
Autumn has its coloured leaves—
But before they turn?

XVIII
Afterwards I think:
Poppies bloom when it thunders.
Is this not enough?

XIX
Love is a game—yes?
I think it is a drowning:
Black willows and stars.

XXI
Turning from the page,
Blind with a night of labour,
I hear morning crows.

XXII
A cloud of lilies,
Or else you walk before me.
Who could see clearly?

XXIII
Sweet smell of wet flowers
Over an evening garden.
Your portrait, perhaps?

XXIV
Staying in my room,
I thought of the new Spring leaves.
That day was happy.

‘Twenty-Four Hokku on a Modern Theme’ (BI11) appeared first in Poetry 18 (1921) and was reprinted in the posthumous What’s O’clock? (BI12).

For an overview of Lowell’s Japanese interests see Amy Lowell and Japan in the Bibliography, and for a note about Lowell titles in print see A Japanese Wood Carving.