The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue <br />The setting sun, too indolent to hold <br />A lengthened tournament for flashing gold, <br />Passively darkens for night's barbeque, <br /> <br />A feast of moon and men and barking hounds. <br />An orgy for some genius of the South <br />With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth, <br />Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds. <br /> <br />The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop, <br />And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill, <br />Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill <br />Their early promise of a bumper crop. <br /> <br />Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile <br />Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low <br />Where only chips and stumps are left to show <br />The solid proof of former domicile. <br /> <br />Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp, <br />Race memories of king and caravan, <br />High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man, <br />Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp. <br /> <br />Their voices rise...the pine trees are guitars, <br />Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain.. <br />Their voices rise...the chorus of the cane <br />Is caroling a vesper to the stars.. <br /> <br />O singers, resinous and soft your songs <br />Above the sacred whisper of the pines, <br />Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines, <br />Being dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.<br /><br />Jean Toomer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/georgia-dusk/
