Sour Grapes (1921)
by
William Carlos Williams
Primrose
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
yellow!
It is not a color.
It is
summer!
It is the wind on a willow,
the lap of
waves, the shadow
under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
three herons, a dead hawk
rotting on a pole--
Clear yellow!
It is a piece of blue paper
in the grass or a threecluster of
green walnuts swaying, children
playing
croquet or one boy
fishing, a man
swinging his
pink fists
as he walks--
It is ladysthumb,
forget-me-nots
in the ditch, moss under
the flange of the carrail, the
wavy lines in split
rock, a
great oaktree--
It is a disinclination to be
five
red petals or a rose, it is
a cluster of birdsbreast flowers
on a red stem six feet high,
four
open yellow petals
above sepals curled
backward into reverse spikes--
Tufts of
purple grass spot the
green meadow and clouds the sky.
Sources:
Public domain text taken from The Poets’ Corner:
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/wcw-sg3.html#32
CST Approved.