Poems By Arjava

The Kingfisher

UP a mossy creek,

All in a blur the rosy breast

And the blue of water-mirrored, earth-forsaking, dream-swift pinionson their quest,—

Bird of the rainbow, quilled from the noon-sky, tempest-sudden and bysunrise blest.

On, over rock, under bough, yet you seek.

Owing me too on, and afar, to the end of your way,

Your fathomless, sun happy, speed-dizzy, crystalline water-bright way,

Till with eyes rinsed clear by the wind-rush,

And with ears that your strangeness unsealed,

Iam one with the prayer of the noon-hush,

" May the wounded Silence be healed."

Sapphire thought swung to time with your wingbeat,

Outwitting dull janitor earth,—

Rare token we lay at Love's feet,

Rose glimmer of trust mid the dearth,—

Sudden astounding hope of the shadow-housed soul,

And answer-flash of the o'erarching, ever during diamond Spirit Fire,

Whose un borrowed Light is the inexhaustible, all-place-centered goal

For the sunrise bird of ecstasy and sapphire-struck desire.

July 28, 1932.