Genevieve Taggard

I have moved west, I travel with the sun; You cannot hold, you cannot hinder me. There are no ends for what I have begun — There are no resting places where I run, Until I am surrendered to the sea.

Over you, over you, over, I hang like a wave, like a lover, Like a scimitar edged with hate ; Too heavy with grief to be straight

And far, Too frail to ever discover How to fall like a wave or a lover — Or a blue-thin scimitar.

I understand what you were running for, Slim naked boy, and why from far inland You came between dark hills. I know the roar The sea makes in some ears. I understand.

I understand why you were running now And how you heard the sea resound, and how You leaped and left your valley for the long Brown road. I understand the song

You chanted with your running, with your feet Marking the measure of your high heart's beat. Now you are broken. Seeing your wide brow I see your dreams. I understand you now.

Since I have run like you, I understand The throat's long wish, the breath that comes so quick, The heart's light leap, the heels that drag so sick, And warped heat wrinkles, lengthening the sand. . . .

Now you are broken. Seeing your wide brow I see your dreams, understanding now The cry, the certainty, wide arms, — and then The way rude ocean rises and descends. . . .

I saw you stretched and wounded where tide ends. I do not want to walk that way again.

Other hearts have broken gracefully, for your sake, And now your eyes reproach me that my ache Is awkward, and my arms Are angular across my breast Where emptiness is pressed.

Only to tell your loveliness — this love : Only to tell Pain's odor, beauty-burning miracle Of my surrender !

Late I flew . . . But ever arrow-straight I fly now from the shade that falls — that fell Lightly on you, On me with a wave's weight.

Oh, I must go : this city has a spell I never gave it leave to have. Still, still to tell The weaving of your footsteps on the stairs With my slow-dropping love for you that wears Cold stone I want my heart for — still I stay. Put out the stars. Give me another day Only to tell.

There was a time when Mother Nature made My soul's sun, and my soul's shade. A cloud in the sky could take away The song in my heart for all day, And a little lark in a willow-tree Would mean happiness to me. My moods would mirror all her whims ; Trees were my strength : their limbs, my limbs. But, oh, my mother tortured me, Blowing with wind, and sighing with sea. I flamed, I withered, I blossomed, I sang, With her I suffered pang for pang,

Until I said: "I will grow my own tree Where no natural wind will bother me." And I grew me a willow of my own heart's strength, With my will for its width, and my wish for its length : And I made me a bird of my own heart's fire, To sing my own sun, and my own desire.

And a vast white circle came in the air, And the winds around said, "Don't blow there." I said, "Blow on — blow, blow, blow, blow, Fill all the sky, above, below, With tempest, and sleet, and silence, and snow !

"Wherever I go, no matter where, My bird and my willow-tree are there. "However you frown, no matter how, I will sing as I am singing now."

You are no more, but sunken in a sea Sheer into dream, ten thousand leagues, you fell ; And now you lie green-golden, while a bell Swings with the tide, my heart : and all is well Till I look down, and wavering, the spell — Your loveliness — returns. There in the sea, Where you lie amber-pale and coral-cool, You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful.

Put her away some place between two hills, Away from the sea and the sun.

She has so much to think of — must she run On your bright bosom always, Mother Earth ? Put her away, and let some other birth Bring her back to the sound of the sea, and the sun.

After she ponders under silent hills, Beneath your swarming bosom, Mother Earth, She will have words for her beloved one.