Fox Footprints/Reminiscence

by Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

For works with similar titles, see Reminiscence.

Reminiscence

I

It is a holiday, and shall be casually used
As fits its dignity.
I will wander among Japanese silks
Piled here beside me on the window-seat,
Stray squares of fancy
Sold in the low close-packed Kyoto streets.
Here are ultramarine rivers
With long skeins of foam
On which float boats laden with flowers;
Here are symbols
On gamboge—pine, bamboo, heron and tortoise
Auguring an old age or a happy married life;
And there a flock of fat-cheeked flying sparrows
In browns and grays and dullest granite-blues
Flood a whole square of mauve and violet—
The soft silk almost flutters with their wings;
And next come fancies to entice a child:
The black hare of the moon, pounding elixir,
The jewelled orange crow that nests in the sun,
And then my favorite, three round parasol-tops
Jostling together while brocaded leaves
Float down upon them—there is the whole scene—
The pith of autumn! scarlet wizardry
Soft-tapping on the dull brown parasols
Which hide invisible bright faces. . . .
Idly I turn the squares
Each one the marrow of some delicate mood.