Ai, what a season—fruit as fat as butter
and half the women in the county pregnant,
the muscats growing rounder by the minute
and every hour the melons getting sweeter:
my senses squirt pure nectar, and the pen
drips honey. The sun mounts like a rutting stallion,
covers the valley- bathes a seeding valley . . .
The cerebellum simmers in its pan—
the world is flesh, and all of me is man.
All Grass Is Flesh
All Grass Is Flesh
John Haag
Prairie Schooner, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Fall 1962), p. 216
John Haag (1926-2008) published three collections of poetry: The Mirrored Man, The Brine Breather, and the award-winning Stones Don’t Float: Poems Selected and New. Many of his poems addressed his experiences in the Merchant Marines. He taught English at Pennsylvania State University for more than thirty years.