In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds crowded erect with desire against the sky-- tense blue-grey twigs slenderly anchoring them down, drawing them in-- two blue-grey birds chasing a third struggle in circles, angles, swift convergings to a point that bursts instantly! Vibrant bowing limbs pull downward, sucking in the sky that bulges from behind, plastering itself against them in packed rifts, rock blue and dirty orange! But-- (Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!) the blinding and red-edged sun-blur-- creeping energy, concentrated counterforce--welds sky, buds, trees, rivets them in one puckering hold! Sticks through! Pulls the whole counter-pulling mass upward, to the right, locks even the opaque, not yet defined ground in a terrific drag that is loosening the very tap-roots! On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds two blue-grey birds, chasing a third, at full cry! Now they are flung outward and up--disappearing suddenly! TREES Crooked, black tree on your little grey-black hillock, ridiculously raised one step toward the infinite summits of the night: even you the few grey stars draw upward into a vague melody of harsh threads. Bent as you are from straining against the bitter horizontals of a north wind,--there below you how easily the long yellow notes of poplars flow upward in a descending scale, each note secure in its own posture--singularly woven. All voices are blent willingly against the heaving contra-bass of the dark but you alone warp yourself passionately to one side in your eagerness. A PORTRAIT IN GREYS Will it never be possible to separate you from your greyness? Must you be always sinking backward into your grey-brown landscapes--and trees always in the distance, always against a grey sky? Must I be always moving counter to you? Is there no place where we can be at peace together and the motion of our drawing apart be altogether taken up? I see myself standing upon your shoulders touching a grey, broken sky-- but you, weighted down with me, yet gripping my ankles,--move laboriously on, where it is level and undisturbed by colors. INVITATION