In 1969 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGEHIJKLIBMND OMOOIIPQRSTUVWXYOOAO ZDA2B2CDC2

Some called it the Summer of Love although the clusteredA
Motionless leaves that overhung the streets looked the sameB
As ever the same as they did every summer inC
Anybody with three dollars could have a visionD
And who wouldn t want to know what it felt like to beE
A cedar waxwing landing with a flutter of gray wingsF
In a spruce tree then disappearing into itG
For only three dollars And now I know its flight is ecstasyE
No matter how I look at it I also now know thatH
The short life of a cedar waxwing is more pure pleasureI
Than anyone alive can still be sane bearJ
And remember a cedar waxwing doesn t mean a thingK
Qua cedar or qua waxwing nor could it have earnedL
That kind of pleasure by working to become a betterI
Cedar waxwing They re all the sameB
Show me a bad cedar waxwing for example I meanM
A really morally corrupted cedar waxwing you ll commendN
The cage they have reserved for you resembling heavenD
-
Some people spent their lives then having visionsO
But in my case the morning after I dropped mescalineM
I had to spray Johnson grass in a vineyard of Thompson SeedlessO
My father owned so still feeling the holiness of all thingsO
Living holding the spray gun in one hand driving with the otherI
The tractor pulling the spray rig its sputtering motorI
Row after row I sprayed each weed I foundP
That looked enough like Johnson grass a thing alive that s goodQ
For nothing at all with a mixture of malathion diesel fuelR
And said to each tall weed as I coated it with a lethal mistS
Dominus vobiscum sometimes mea culpa untilT
It seemed boring to apologize to weeds insincere as wellU
For in a day or so no more than that the weeds would turnV
Disgusting hues of yellowish orange wither away I still feltW
The bird s flight in my body when I thought about it the wing acheX
Lifting heaven locating itself somewhere just above my slumpedY
Shoulders part of me taking wind I d feel it at odd momentsO
After that on those long days I spent shoveling vines driving trucksO
And tractors helping swamp fruit out of one orchardA
Or another but as the summer went on I felt it less and lessO
-
As the summer went on some were drafted some enlistedZ
In a generation that would not stop falling a generationD
Of leaves sticking to body bags when they turned themA2
Over they floated back to us on television even thenB2
In the Summer of Love inC
When riot police waited beyond the doors of perceptionD
And the best thing one could do was get arrestedC2

Larry Levis



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