Out of the Rainbow End lyrics

For Edward Steichen

A delphinium flings a shadow

with a rooted stalk -

a personal shadow.

Each silhouette documents

designs and dooms woven

between shape and shadowshape.

You may add two delphiniums

with seeds lighted in soil

with stalks prepared in loam

toward the upheave into bloom

when stalk and leaves find a path

hold a rocketform of blue

hold it in a velvet stillstand.

In a summer daybreak rain

a huddle of delphiniums

across spikes of fogblue leaves

out of little mistblue cups

trade meditations on being

shapes and shadowshapes.

Cups and bells nod in the sun,

in the fine dust of the wind:

one newborn delphinium laughing

at the long scroll of marriages

whereby she is the latest child

bringing to the bright air her shape,

to the dark earth her shadow.

Shaded out of seven prisms

in choices by living fingers

out of the rainbow end?

Yes and the winds

of many evenings came:

dawns drew in with dew and mist

and the bells of many rains rang.

Soft and lovely

these transients go yet stay

Even their violence goes in velvet.

• Artist:Carl Sandburg