For a Man Gone to Strasbourg Who Left an Automobile Behind Him by Charles Olson

for j w

the callacanthus
out again (the golden fury seen
thru those red candles

not at all a dead car, curiously,
even though it hasn’t moved as what pushes out but
has

not deadhead (as Grady’s
two were, all winter

Beyond, the grove of little dogwood (today’s
entry

But, by the heady red flowers (their smell
will be heavy), the large dogwood (the single bush,
back of the stone steps,
glares

2
and it came out this way (just after you  had left,)
a year ago

suddenly the spring field is blue, of figwort
and the callacanthus smell is intercepted by that color
as the dogwood was by the green of my pleasure
that I slept under it, for an hour, and woke,
as they have, to the rising of
the forces.

From: http://jacketmagazine.com/38/jwb02-olson-for-a-man.shtml

Date: 1953

By: Charles Olson (1910-1970)