Poem by Sherwood Anderson

A Vagrant

I am become a brightly colored insect.
I am a boy lying by a river on a summer day.
At my back is an orchard.

I look dreamily out over warm stagnant waters. There is a reed grows out of the yellow mud. In the orchard at my back a hog grunts. An insect with brightly colored back and wings comes swinging down stream. He has lived more freely than the waters of the river. I go with him as I would go in at the door of God's house if I knew the street in which God's house stands, as I would go into you if you would leave the door open for me.

Sherwood Anderson
American Spring Song: The Selected Poems of Sherwood Anderson
The Kent State University Press

Copyright © 2007 by The Kent State University Press