African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Helene Johnson, "Rustic Fantasy" (1929)

The goat's milk is sweeter.
The white bellied frog
Forsakes the water and its tail for land.
The wild sow and her shoats
Make defloration of the forest fruits.
A roebuck leads a troop of fallow deer
To a fragrant field of clover.
Despite the marten,
The mole ejects her young,
Is anchoret again in snug seclusion.
Hermes rests beneath the cool shade of a date tree
His lips thirsty for an open gourd.
The bees are warm with honey . . . 

Published in Saturday Evening Quill, 1929

This page has tags: