Within the care of the season

Suddenly there are pumpkins wherever you look!

GREEN   RED   BROWN   AND   WHITE

Bit an apple on its red

side        smelled like snow

Between white halves broken open

brown winks slept in sockets of green

Stroked a birch white as a thigh

scar-flecked smooth as a neck

of a horse          On mossy pallets green

the pines dripped down

their perfect carvings brown

Lost in the hairy wood

followed berries red

to the fork         Had to choose

between green and green        High

In a sunwhite dome a brown bird

sneezed         Took the path least likely

and it led me home         For

each path leads both out and in

I come while going      No to and from

There is only here       And here

as well as there          Wherever

I am led I move within the care

of the season

hidden in the creases of her skirts

of green or brown or beaded red

And when they are white

I am not lost        I am not lost then

only covered for the night

May Swenson
(1913-1989)

The Voice That Is Great Within Us; 

American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, 

edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam, 1970, page 481.

May Swenson, born in Logan, Utah, was the oldest of 10 children.

She grew up in a household where Swedish was the home language. She had a long and well-regarded poetry career, and did translate poetry from Swedish as part of it.

This poem has irregular stanzas, interesting spaces within the lines,

and no puncuation! It also has a bird sneezing. Good night. . .