In the dim-lit square,
Where dishevelled trees
Tustle with the wind--the wind like a scythe
Mowing their last leaves--
Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze--
Pale oval arcs
Like ailing virgins,
Each out of a halo circumscribed,
Pallidly staring...
Figures drift upon the benches
With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling--
Slovenly figures like untied parcels,
And papers wrapped about their knees
Huddled one to the other,
Cringing to the wind--
The sided wind,
Leaving no breach untried...
So many and all so still...
The fountain slobbering its stone basin
Is louder than They--
Flotsam of the five oceans
Here on this raft of the world.
This old man's head
Has found a woman's shoulder.
The wind juggles with her shawl
That flaps about them like a sail,
And splashes her red faded hair
Over the salt stubble of his chin.
A light foam is on his lips,
As though dreams surged in him
Breaking and ebbing away...
And the bare boughs shuffle above him
And the twigs rattle like dice...
She--diffused like a broken beetle--
Sprawls without grace,
Her face gray as asphalt,
Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges...
Shadows ply about her mouth--
Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree,
That dances above her its dance of dry bones.
II
A uniformed front,
Paunched;
A glance like a blow,
The swing of an arm,
Verved, vigorous;
Boot-heels clanking
In metallic rhythm;
The blows of a baton,
Quick, staccato.
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