Alice Corbin

From “Candle-light and Sun”

SUNLIGHT is in my eyes,

Every house edged with light;

Open fields are before me,

Mountains across the sky.

What have I to do with cities?

Here the gods are clean, wind-swept.

They run along the hills,

Mad with sunlight;

They tumble into a deep canyon;

They take hold of a cloud

And swing with it—listen!—

They drop far off, noiselessly,

Beyond the blue mountain.

At night they lie down under the moon.

Do you see that hill move—

Heavily, like a sleeper,

Wrinkling his skin,

Moving the contour of pines and rocks,

Resting his hips?

It is not far to the stars,

Not far for them to lean down and whisper …

Sunlight, I am mad with your light.

Rocks, I have never known you before.

Earth, your red canyons

Are sluiced through me,

The crests of your hills

Break over me—

I ride upward to meet them.