I. L. Salomon

That night in Central Park, we two Stared at the rippled waters of The placid lake; and only you And I, so much we were in love, Heard singing where no birdsong was, Rich in the pulse; and you and I Over the dark and starlit glass Kissed as the brown ducks glided by.

So still it was great stars burned out In flakes on the unruffled air; And quiet as our hearts were not The shadows of the shy birds were; The sleeping wind stirred in the west; Immense and infinite and deep, Night leaned against time's lovely breast With half-the-world asleep.

When wolf is brother to the lamb And cows find hurdles on the moon And playful cats bed down with mice And spiders ravel what they weave,

When weeds refuse to crab the grass And light stews greenness out of leaves And pines don't shade new growth to death And nothing weather-breeds a storm,

Then two as one shall be as naught Yet I so ciphered round and true, A perfect nullity, will seek The new dimension that is you.

Home again to my world secure, I find her touch in everything, An opulence no life can be Without and still be welcome guest.

Yet even with the house shipshape, Herself not there when I come in, The rooms become a vacuum, The freshness stale despite her skill.

Sometimes I fret at differences Between us, yet intemperance So ill becomes her, she forgives My faults but not the fool I play.

I cannot move but in her faith, I cannot live but in her love, She keeps the hearthstone we two share And home is all because of her.

When under the candid eye of the sun, Ice burns in wheel-ruts, the slightest wisp Of a folded leaf bursts its green-quilled sheath On the prickly thorn as the wind comes crisp.

And the murmur of leaf on opening first In fair morning dew its new-green blade Is an augur of rose as winter is hearsed In acquisitive time—when sweetness is made!

The incorruptible earth suffers mankind His multiple invasion. She's not concerned How dialectics paralyze his mind, Or how his broken tortured poor, interned Within the concentration camp, can hope; Or who lies shattered on the ugly rack, Or who hangs limp from the impulsive rope, Or who bears crooked crosses on his back.

To her who gives life, what increase is given? Yet she, as patient as a mother is Who waits her son's return as he is driven Back to her amplitude of quietness, Takes him to her sweet breast and holds him there Like a tired child who sleeps on unaware.

Ride my little horse Like a charger up the sky, His wings spread wide, His forelegs high, With earth-dew at my feet, Moon-dew on my face, And the planet's gravitation Holding me in place.

I shall Canter on the skyway, Nor swerve from the course, My five senses gaited To my little horse; Hunger for the lovely, Heart-break for the sweet War-youth lately come To Eternity Street.

I shall Tell of the envenomed Lusts that bridle men, How the world's gone wrong (And threatens to, again) As a million starry eyes Blink to hide the tears They have hidden from the earth's Sad children down the years.

I shall Mark the burning stars For the innocent who lose Tomorrows to the ruthless Who despoil them as they choose; And my little horse will kick Stars like golden pebbles flung In sparks from his hooves For the imperishable young!

The coal-black cat and the chipmunk sat, A verandah's length between them; All stillness crouched in a feline frame, The cat was slick as the chipmunk tame, And never O never his yellow eyes Betrayed his arrested energies,— The steely limbs beneath his coat, Desire latched from gullet to throat,— And he stared as if his horizon were Beyond the creature in stripèd fur.

The chipmunk sat with the coal-black cat, A verandah's length between them; Her deep-brown irises transfixed And dread and decorum intermixed, She disputed the blood in its fiery urge As the pulse endured the arterial scourge; Yet held her fear with assumed repose, For never O never would she disclose The verandah's stoven slat, where she Preempted an open sesame, And momentwise could escape a death With no test word for a shibboleth.

The fabulous strength in the tiny length Of the furred chipmunk was amazing; Her small heart burned as her bloodstream churned, Her glistered eyes stirred, blazing; Her limbs recoiled as she caught a glance Of the big tom's furious iron stance And before his muscled and tractable paws Held her broken neck in his blasphemous jaws, She leaped, a current of lightning, from The immobilized and terrible tom, Who barricaded the unhinged slat, Till his obstinate sleek was skeletal fat, And he eased him through with unhurrying grace To trouble the leaves in the hiding place.

The coal-black cat sat licking his chops, As feline gourmets do; With never a care he sniffed the air And sneezed a soft kerchoo! And he sniffled a sniff and cherished the whiff And laid him down for a snooze, As a chipmunk choir with chipmunk ire Sang the chipmunk blues; But the atavistic materialistic Tom with the tigery brain Gave a feline start as his feral heart Set him loose on the prowl again.

From the stone coffin, I Scooped up limed grit and sand Of what had been a man; I held him in my hand.

I held him in my hand, Who suffered me to know What air had burnt to dust Three hundred years ago.