Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

On the Mesa

A. Y. Winters

THIS I saw on the mesa’s edge

As the sun sprang up chanting:

A squat girl,

Naked as the red rock;

Brow, face, breasts, limbs,

Square lines in red rock;

Arms reaching toward the sun;

From parted lips

A silent song, veering like a swallow’s course, flying.

This I saw on the mesa’s edge

As the sun sprang up chanting.

But the sun outleapt its ardor, dwindled

To a cynical blinking yellow eye,

And she drooped heavily.

And I could have fingered her naked flesh

As one might touch crumbling stone!