Chapter 3, Poems of Pictures of the Gone World (1955) Summary

The first poem depicts a woman hanging clothes on a clothesline on a roof, praising her beauty and sensuality as the clothes wrap around her. In the second poem, love comes harder to the aged because they have been running on the same rails for too long. Eventually, the miss their turn, a rail breaks off and they arrive at the place to lie down while the saloon careens on down the track with lovers and blue skies. In poem three, Praxiteles sculpts trees, chameleons, doves, lovers and other superhumans caught on their way to death, but they never reach death, still existing now, three thousand years later. Yet, Praxiteles dies at the age of twenty-eight, proving that sculpture is not for young men. In poem four, the poet...