Elizabeth Bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams ,hurry too rapidly down to the sea and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops

,Although it is a cold evening down by one of the fishhouses ,an old man sits netting ,his net, in the gloaming almost invisible

.At evening, something behind me ,I start for a second, I blench .or staggeringly halt and burn .I do not know my age

Oh, but it is dirty ,this little filling station— oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all .

In the cold, cold parlor my mother laid out Arthur :beneath the chromographs رEdward, Prince of Wales

.At low tide like this how sheer the water is White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare .and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches

,In Worcester, Massachusetts I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook .fast in a corner of his mouth

.September rain falls on the house In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child ,beside the Little Marvel Stove

I am in need of music that would flow ,Over my fretful, feeling fingertips ,Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips .With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow

Hidden, oh hidden in the high fog ,the house we live in ,beneath the magnetic rock ,rain-, rainbow-ridden