Chapter 8
Selected Poems from Cirrus From The West, 1935
Mother Box Elder
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
On a cold hillside
Stands
Mother Box Elder,
With twenty thousand children
In her arms.
The wind cannot
Take them from her;
The cold causes her
To hold them
More closely.
In the spring,
When the air is soft,
She will bid them
Good-by,
And they will fly away
To a fence corner
And begin
To grow
Up!
January 20, 1935 — Minot, N.D.
Lime-green, under rose, was the western sky as Robt. C. Cassels and I walked up South Hill at 20° below zero. A samara-laden box elder was warmly brown; and a Russian olive retained some silver berries.
Winter Scene
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
In the bright
Zero sun
A Hen-pack
Of sharptailed grouse
Rests on the hilltop . . .
The sentinel emerges
From the shadow
Of a Russian thistle
And slides down a snowbank . . .
The birds, leaping to wing,
Glide,
In pearl-breasted flight,
To a flat meadow.
In the hard, blue sky
A roughleg hawk,
Diurnal bird of prey,
Scans the white prairie,
And drops swiftly
Into a flock
Of Hungarian partridge!
The pounce drives
A small victim
Deep into the snow.
The hawk severs
A pin-buff head,
Tears the dull red breast feathers
And gorges himself
On liver-colored flesh . . .
Beyond,
The frozen Missouri,
White and peaceful,
Skirts the bold headlands
Of McKenzie County.
January 23, 1935 — Williston, N.D.
Near the Lewis and Clark Bridge—a silver network against the snow—I stopped to examine the winter scene. The thermometer was 39° below at 8 A.M.—the coldest I have experienced in my lifetime; but at noon the weather was a gay and balmy zero, and the sun lay warmly on the snowy prairies.
Knowledge
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
I,
Above the clouds,
Look down
On acres
Of common mustard,
Playing
Yellowly
In the crop fields.
I,
Above the clouds,
Cannot see
One mustard flower,
But I know
That each
Has four petals,
And that the pods
Are many
Seeded.
I,
Above the clouds,
Know
That when I
Hold a mustard petal
In my hand,
I am seeing
Little more
Than I saw
From the
Aeroplane.
June 30, 1935
By aeroplane, Williston to Bismarck, N.D., on a bright Sunday morning.
Sky Etude
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
The sky is a
Dull garment,
Marked with chalk
And basting threads . . .
The Great Dressmaker
Pulls out the threads:
Suddenly
The sky is seamless . . .
A lash of snow
Strikes from the north . . .
The road is mottled
With curling smoke;
The snow-drive
Mounts in strength;
The road-cuts
Are impenetrable
Maelstroms of white . . .
Automobiles
Stagger to a halt,
Then push
Creepingly
On . . .
The wind
Shifts
Into the west;
The air
Slowly clears.
The sky
Changes
From gray
To silver.
A faint shadow moves
On the floor—
It is the sun,
Sifting
Through the spokes
Of the steering wheel!
And,
Over the Badlands,
A wide,
Blurred
Light,
Tinges with gold,
The Pearled
Echelons
Of the
Cloud banks.
March 15, 1935
Bismarck to Watford City, N.D., via Dickinson and Belfield.
Red Mallow
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
If you
Would know
The red
Mallow,
Choose of these:
For color—
Gold-fused
Crimson,
Oriental red,
Copper pink
And
Burnished salmon.
For odor—
Mock orange,
Radiance rose . . .
The exhalation
Of white hickory,
Brushed
By the
Night wind . . .
The flowing
Perfume
Of
Bruised
Sassafras . . .
The mallow
Wells up
Like blood
In the
Prairie grass,
Rusting
The railroad,
Red-penciling
The
Full lips
Of the
Highway.
July 19, 1935 — Bismarck, N.D.
The wild flowers, gardened by the sun and stars and wind and clouds are beautiful, and the low red or false mallow (Malvastrum coccineum) has caught the eye of native North Dakotans and trans-continental travelers.
Sunset Sonata
from Cirrus From The West, 1935
The cord grass
Is ambered by the sun;
The cold water,
Frozen at the shore,
Gleams
Like blue steel.
A flight of mallards
Sweeps by,
With a whir of wings.
Two hunters,
Brown coated and capped,
Take aim,
But hold their fire—
The flight is out of range.
Two bluebills sweep low
Over the duck pass:
Shotguns cough instantly;
A duck plunges into the water,
And a Spaniel dog
Pushes toward his prey . . .
A train of geese
Comes barking in for the night.
The sun drops behind the bank
And lavender tints
Ricochet gently
From the east,
Turning the ice and water
Into violet.
The duck hunters
Wade heavily
Shoreward;
And night draws
A velvet curtain
Over the cord grass.
November, 1934 — Lake Ardoch, N.D.
Letter to a Student Interested in Bliss's Poetry
May 16, 1936
Tom E. Gutthey
Mentor, Ohio
Dear Tom:
I was delighted to know that you have taken my work for your term paper in Modern Poetry. I imagine that what you want is some biographical data and perhaps some remarks on how I happened to get into the writing of verse. From the Biographical enclosures you will observe that I studied poetry while in college but as a matter of fact, I did not write a good deal of it until I was about 36 years old. Then I suddenly found myself utilizing my evenings in the setting down in verse form of thoughts that occurred to me. This happened while I was living in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 1926 I moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and one Christmas published about eight poems in a little pamphlet which I used to send Christmas greetings to my friends. This was called "Songs For Seven Moods." It made quite a hit and as a result the next year I got together a considerable amount of verse and published it under the title "After Supper Poems."
While in St. Louis I met Harold J. Matthews, who was at that time secretary of the Missouri Conference of Social Welfare at Jefferson City, Missouri. He did beautiful drawings in black and white purely as a hobby. The result was that we decided to collaborate. Therefore he made drawings for my next book, "Rough Edges And All," and each book that I have written since he has illustrated.
Apparently you haven't a copy of "Spin Dance" so I am giving myself the pleasure of sending you a complimentary copy. This has a biographical note of myself and Mr. Matthews on the last fold of the jacket.
My first work was all in rhyme and meter, but when I came to North Dakota to live, I was overwhelmed by the prairies and the Badlands and for some reason or the other it seemed impossible to describe them within the bounds of rhyme and meter. You can see from "Spin Dance," which is a combination of both forms, the beginning of my emancipation from lock-step verse.
Please understand I have no prejudice against rhyme and meter, but I think the song should be fitted to the words and where the song tells of the Badlands, I feel that providing the lines are musical, that is all that is necessary. You will find that "Cirrus From The West" reads very well. That is, you can recite it and get probably more out of it than you can merely by reading it without sound. It is made to be read aloud and I think you will find a good deal of music in it.
I am enclosing a copy of excerpts from recent criticisms. There are some critics who oppose my method because they cannot see why a preposition should be given a full line occasionally. The answer is that by giving the preposition a full line I have put white space around a more important word or phrase. Something has to be done with the prepositions after all, so I don't know as there is anything I could do about it unless I devise some method of using a smaller type much as the symbol for degrees, say of heat is put after a figure or a geometric power is indicated by placing a small figure after a numeral.
But I don't think it is necessary to go to such lengths even if using the same size type for a preposition does seem to make it stick out. We must remember that rhyme and meter were first invented by bards who had no printing to fall back upon. They used rhyme and meter in order to jog their memories when they were called upon to recite and sing when most of the guests were full to overflowing with vitals and other things—and perhaps the bard himself was a bit dizzy.
In this age of printing we perhaps do not need the aid of rhyme and meter as much as we once did. Nevertheless I am writing in both forms and shall continue to do so. I am now writing a book of poetry called "West of the Red River" which will be my eighth.
I am very appreciative of the fact that you are studying my work and perhaps you would let me see the article you write. I will promise to return it.
Very sincerely yours,
Paul S. Bliss
Administrative Assistant