A Dish of Peaches in Russia

Wallace StevensWallace Stevens

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With my whole body I taste these peaches,

I touch them and smell them.  Who speaks?I absorb them as the Angevine

Absorbs Anjou.  I see them as a lover sees,As a young lover sees the first buds of spring

And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar.Who speaks?  But it must be that I,

That animal, that Russian, that exile, for whomThe bells of the chapel pullulate sounds at

Heart.  The peaches are large and round,Ah! and red; and they have peach fuzz, ah!

They are full of juice and the skin is soft.They are full of the colors of my village

And of fair weather, summer, dew, peace.The room is quiet where they are.

The windows are open.  The sunlight fillsThe curtains.  Even the drifting of the curtains,

Slight as it is, disturbs me.  I did not knowThat such ferocities could tear

One self from another, as these peaches do.

Wallace Stevens
About the poet

Wallace Stevens

1879 - 1955/Male/AmericanA Modernist poet whose meditative and philosophical poems' moods rotate between ecstasy, apathy, and reluctance between ecstasy and apathy. (wikipedia)

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