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rev. 7/64

Kauai from Monhegan

Thinking of that other island
Swollen in the sun and strung
With lianas and honohono streams,
That other island and that other sea,

I give myself this long grey day
To northern arcs and a fog-dimned sea
And mark how without so und the coves drop off
How without echo as spindrift.

I let this grey unprismatic lie
Shale upon shoal. The unromantic shells
Passive and placeless turn and turn,
And I am given to the frugal bay,

Reserving that other pleasure--
Bright red, bright blue, bright yellow
For that other island, where palms shout 
And sharp suns shatter the glass of the sea.