Modern American Poetry

(^142) Helen Hennessy Vendler
Or gaudy as tulips? ...
As they climb the flights
To the closes
Overlooking whole seasons?
Let us build the building of light.
Push up the towers to the cock-tops.
These are the pointings of our edifice,
Which, like a gorgeous palm,
Shall tuft the commonplace.
...
How [shall we] carve the violet moon
To set in nicks? (OP,16–17)
This sketchy poem reads like a first draft of the idea for Credences of Summerand The
Auroras of Autumn,both poems composed in “the closes/ Overlooking whole seasons.”
The tower, the company of actors, their speech, their garments, even the word nick
(though perhaps in a different sense) are all points in common, as is the prescribing of a
ritual.