E. Merrill Root, "The Dunes" (1927)
Sun and sand and wind and spray—
On the lonely dunes today.
Tranipling silver dust of spumes
Strides the wind: he wears the glooms
Of vast purple clouds for plumes.
Mightily Lake Michigan
Hurls his white diluvian
Wolves across the narrow span.
Mournful grass like huddled sheep
Cowers from the roar and sweep
Of the waves and winds that leap.
And the sand (that once was proud
Rock) lies desolate and cowed,
Broken to a level crowd.
And one tree, a twisted gnome,
Rises from the monochrome
Leprous silver of his home.
There in primal joy I lie
Underneath a savage sky
Where the pluméd clouds go by.
Joyful on the trampled verge
Of two worlds, I lie and urge
In my soul thetr shock and surge.
For my spirit wins elation
And majestic affirmation
Best from stormy desolation.
There in primal loneliness
Let me lie amid the stress
Of the cosmic emphasis.
Let me hear forevermore
Life, of which I am the shore,
On my body’s beaches roar!
Not for me earth’s plenilune
But the wild white crescent moon
Of the beach that ends the dune!
Published in Ebony and Topaz, 1927