"Sea Iris" by H. D.

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( August 19, 2017 [Sea Iris]( [H. D.]( I Weed, moss-weed, root tangled in sand, sea-iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken, and you print a shadow like a thin twig. Fortunate one, scented and stinging, rigid myrrh-bud, camphor-flower, sweet and salt—you are wind in our nostrils. II Do the murex-fishers drench you as they pass? Do your roots drag up colour from the sand? Have they slipped gold under you— rivets of gold? Band of iris-flowers above the waves, you are painted blue, painted like a fresh prow stained among the salt weeds. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem “Sea Iris” was published in Sea Garden (Constable and Company, Ltd., 1916). Hilda Doolittle was born in 1886 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her collections of poetry include Red Roses for Bronze (Houghton Mifflin, 1931) and Helen in Egypt (Grove Press, 1961). She died in 1961. Photo credit: Perdita Schaffner/New Directions [more-at-poets]( Poetry by H. D. [Collected Poems 1912-1944]( (New Directions Publishing, 1986) "The Poem as Mask" by Muriel Rukeyser [read-more]( "Poet’s Work" by Lorine Niedecker [read-more]( “Maelstrom: One Drop Makes the Whole World Kin” by Anne Waldman [read-more]( Help Support Poem-a-Day If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a [monthly donation]( or [one-time gift]( to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038