Sumach and Birds
Sumach and Birds - meaning Summary
Beloved Shapes the Landscape
The speaker imagines an alternate autumn in which a beloved never arrived, listing vivid natural images—pigeon light, red sumach, bursting red-haws—that would otherwise mark the season. Those images both signify the beloved's beauty and offer consolation: if she had not come, the speaker would still watch migrating birds and hear the north wind. The poem links personal longing with landscape, suggesting nature mirrors and soothes emotional loss.
Read Complete AnalysesIF you never came with a pigeon rainbow purple Shining in the six o’clock September dusk: If the red sumach on the autumn roads Never danced on the flame of your eyelashes: If the red-haws never burst in a million Crimson fingertwists of your heartcrying: If all this beauty of yours never crushed me Then there are many flying acres of birds for me, Many drumming gray wings going home I shall see, Many crying voices riding the north wind.
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