Charles Reznikoff

 

from Rhythms II

I look across the housetops,
through the leaves in a black pattern:
where are you hidden, moon? 

Surely I saw her, 
broad-bosomed and golden,
coming toward us.

The horses keep tossing their heads and stamp the hollow flooring,
wheel knocks into wheel
as the ferry glides out into a damp wind.

The coal-truck horses, three abreast, ponderously,
sides and rumps shaking.

With blown manes and tales
the horses fling themselves along lifting their riders.

The thin horses step beside the lawns in the park,
the small hoofs newly oiled,

heads high, their nostrils taking the air

The horses keep tossing their heads and stamp the hollow flooring,
wheel knocks into wheel
as the ferry glides out into a damp wind.

The coal-truck horses, three abreast, ponderously,
sides and rumps shaking.

With blown manes and tales
the horses fling themselves along lifting their riders.

The thin horses step beside the lawns in the park,
the small hoofs newly oiled,
heads high, their nostrils taking the air.

Rhythms II was published by the author in Brooklyn, New York, in 1919.� It contained twenty-five unnumbered poems.� For Poems (1920) Reznikoff rearranged the sequence, combined two poems into one, and revised ten others.� For Five Groups of Verse (1927), he again rearranged the order, revised two poems, and dropped two.� As a final revision, in the 1962 selection one poem had its title deleted.� The present text follows the 1927 version.