Henry Bellamann - Sand Hills (1921)

Forgotten Poems #20

—: Sand Hills :—

 
        The world is spread with rough grained silk,
        crumpled a little where the sky indents it
        and cuts off the view.

        The very old gods,
        long since tired of northern lights
        and seas too jewelled
        and snows too glittering,—
        tired, too, of men,—
        the very old gods come here
        in the late evening
        to sit quietly on the warm gray silk
        and rest their eyes
        with milky opal tints
        and the smoky blue
        flecked by the dim fire of giant stars.
   

Henry Bellamann (1882-1945)
P: American Poetry Magazine (1920), Tempo (1921), Broom (1921), The Measure (1921), Poetry (1921), The Forum (1922), The Midland (1922), Voices (1922), The Century (1923), Current Opinion (1923), Poet Lore (1924); A: Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921), BP (1922), Year Book of the Poetry Society of South Carolina (1923), The Home Book of Modern Verse (1925), The Third Book of Modern Verse (1927); C: A Music Teacher's Notebook (1921), Cups of Illusion (1923), The Upward Pass (1928); short-stories, novels, articles, etc.

Born in Missouri; “Musician and head of a music school, living in Columbia, South Carolina.” (Poetry, 1921)

“. . . tides draw ever and ever to these inconsistent coasts, striving to mold some shape unknown to us, striving to sound some music strange to us . . .” (Bellamann, 1928)

 
            For Henry Bellamann
                   by Dick Whyte

        to the builders
        of horizons—

        who foretold the ages
        of water
 
        & the lore
        by which stars keep time,

        & letters are bound
        into words—

        yours is a love
        we still need


                     xoxo
                      dw
  

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