I

The blue sun in his red cockade
Walked the United States today,

Taller than any eye could see,
Older than any man could be.

He caught the flags and the picket-lines
Of people, round the auto-works:

His manner slickened them. He milled
In the rowdy serpentines. He drilled.

His red cockade topped off a parade.
His manner took what it could find,

In the greenish greens he flung behind
And the sound of pianos in his mind.

II

Solange, the magnolia to whom I spoke,
A nigger tree and with a nigger name,

To which I spoke, near which I stood and spoke,
I am Solange, euphonious bane, she said.

I am a poison at the winter's end,
Taken with withered weather, crumpled clouds,

To smother the wry spirit's misery.
Inhale the purple fragrance. It becomes

Almost a nigger fragment, a mystique
For the spirit left helpless by the intelligence.

There's a moment in the year, Solange,
When the deep breath fetches another year of life.