Vernon Watkins, 2 Poems for Wine & Festival

Vine
Deep-rooted vine, delay your fruit 
Beyond youth’s rashness. I have seen 
Rich promise wither to the root 
Before its time had been.

Drain all the darkness of the soil 
And stand there shrivelled, crisp and dry, 
Too lifeless in your parchment coil
To open one green eye.

Some watch the March winds animate
Those early bulbs in Winter’s bed.
Envy them not, but keep your state.
Let others think you dead.

Contain in secrecy that balm
Strengthening the sap before it move, 
That the broad leaves from wells of calm
One day grow dark with love.

I know a tree as dry as yours.
The patient leaf is put forth late.
Its life is anchored in the hours 
For which the heart must wait.


For a Wine Festival
Now the late fruits are in. 
Now moves the leaf-starred year 
Down, in the sun’s decline. 
Stoop. Have no fear. 
Glance at the burdened tree: 
Dark is the grape’s wild skin. 
Dance, limbs, be free. 
Bring the bright clusters here 
And crush them into wine. 

Acorns from yellow boughs 
Drop to the listening ground. 
Spirits who never tire, 
Dance, dance your round. 
Old roots, old thoughts and dry, 
Catch, as your footprints rouse 
Flames where they fly, 
Knowing the year has found 
Its own more secret fire. 

Nothing supreme shall pass. 
Earth to an ember gone 
Wears but the death it feigns 
And still burns on. 
One note more true than time 
And shattered falls his glass. 
Steal, steal from rhyme: 
Take from the glass that shone 
The vintage that remains.

Vernon Watkins, 1906-1967 – both poems from New Selected Poems