Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
— William Shakespeare

So much depends on the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Without his poetry, how many American poets would still use the formal language of Whitman? His poems are important stepping stones in the path. Many of my favorite poems can be found in William Carlos Williams: Poetry for Young People, edited by Christopher MacGowan and illustrated by Robert Crockett, 2004, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

An unexpected poem, Iris, was new to me and embodies a typical WCW poetic moment:

Iris

a burst of iris so that
come down for
breakfast

we searched through the
rooms for
that

sweetest odor and at
first could not
find its

source then a blue as
of the sea
struck

startling us among
those trumpeting
petals

I like to think of him, so entranced by a scent that he could not settle to breakfast until he had found the source. His use of white space was nearly mathematical, like flowers in nature.