CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
Into the hushed rustle of red dust,
A buzzing—a noise in slow zigzags
Above the saltgrass and saxifrage
Until it alights like a winged shard
Of spring, a slick greenbottle fly whose green
To this red desert brings the lazy drowse
Of pastoral afternoons. And O! the willows
Thicket in the sand with the loose-limbed bravura
Of riverbank groves, their waxy switches
Spritzed with dust-vermillion. The God of ancient plagues,
Of blowflies swarming from the Nile to crust
The eyes and mouths of the cursed,
God of wandering in the waste
Forty famine years, until the cows are hide-bare and ribby
And the heart is trudged past bitterness to humble,
Must be appalled at this benign inheritance,
Affront to the idea of desert. He of all should know
How perfection keeps itself aloof, disdains
That poor unlucky who would love it.
How desolate an exile beauty makes.
A buzzing—a noise in slow zigzags
Above the saltgrass and saxifrage
Until it alights like a winged shard
Of spring, a slick greenbottle fly whose green
To this red desert brings the lazy drowse
Of pastoral afternoons. And O! the willows
Thicket in the sand with the loose-limbed bravura
Of riverbank groves, their waxy switches
Spritzed with dust-vermillion. The God of ancient plagues,
Of blowflies swarming from the Nile to crust
The eyes and mouths of the cursed,
God of wandering in the waste
Forty famine years, until the cows are hide-bare and ribby
And the heart is trudged past bitterness to humble,
Must be appalled at this benign inheritance,
Affront to the idea of desert. He of all should know
How perfection keeps itself aloof, disdains
That poor unlucky who would love it.
How desolate an exile beauty makes.