West, Jessamyn

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 13 | Issue 4 Article 19
1943
Sailors en Route to San Pedro
Jessamyn West
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Recommended Citation
West, Jessamyn. "Sailors en Route to San Pedro." New Mexico Quarterly 13, 4 (1943). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol13/
iss4/19
NEW MEXICO QUARTERLY REVIEW
SAILORS EN ROUTE TO SAN PEDRO
The land-locked boys are moving
to sea in dusty trains:
the boys who know no more of water
than falls in prairie rains.
The ears attuned to rustle
of wind in summer corn
will hear on distant waters
sounds more forlorn.
The mouths t4at whistled, kissed
shape now for darker tasks
and Peach-downed faces harden
to look like sailors' masks.
o may their dry bones never
suffer sea change.
.Mayall that's coral and watery weeds
Exceed their furthest range.
JESSAMYN WEST
TOE D M U N D S PEN S E R, ESQ.
~en ask me, what is this peculiar- shape,
The unhaltered and confusing dragon-span
Of tedious perceptions, which doth gape
Its maw against their commonplace and clan.
Well, it is my mind. And it is man.
And it is you, old pious courtly hack:
I am unveiling books of you, whose plan
You dared not quite concede, not quite attack.
Brother, now your ~ddened earth sinks back
Into its drop of light. Reunions pale,
Your flowered imaginations, your misty track
Of metaphysical chapters, mythic trail-
All clarifies once m~re, resumes its glass;
Time doth unfold what longtime bundled was.
JA M E S F RAN K LIN LEW I S
1
West: Sailors en Route to San Pedro
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1943


Sailors en Route to San Pedro

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Sailors en Route to San Pedro

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